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Painting by Hoicard Pylc 



SING OF DEATH' 




OII|itialrg 



la 
Slam^a Sranrlj Olab^U 



"And /, according to my copy, and 
after the simple cunning that God Jtath 
sent to me, have down set this hi print, 
to the intent that noble men may see and 
learn the noble acts of chivalry, ^^ 



3fUtt0trat^5 




19 09 



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Copyright, 1909, by Harper & Brothers. 

AU rights reserved. 

Publirhed October, 1909. 



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TO 

Atttt^ Sranrif fflab^U 

"AINSI A VOUS, MADAME, A MA TR^S HAULTE ET 

TRES NOBLE DAME, A QUI J'AYME A DEVOIR 

ATTACHEMENT ET OBEISSANCE, 

J'ENVOYE CE LIVRET." 



r^rauttottal 



/MPRIMIS, as concerns the authenticity of these tales 
perhaps the less debate may he the higher wisdom, if only 
because this Nicolas de Caen, by common report, was 
never a Gradgrindian. And in this volume in particular, 
writing it (as Nicolas is supposed to have done) in 14^0, as a 
dependant on the Duke of Burgundy, it were but human na- 
ture should our author be a little niggardly in his ascription of 
praiseworthy traits to any member of the house of Lancaster 
or of Valois. Rather must one in common reason accept 
him as confessedly a partisan writer, who upon occasion 
will recolor an event with such nuances as will be least 
inconvenient to a Yorkist and Burgundian bias. 

The reteller of these stories needs in addition to plead 
guilty of having abridged the tales with a free hand. Item, 
these tales have been a trifle pulled about, most notably in 
*'The Story of the Satraps," where it seemed advanta- 
geous, on reflection, to put into Gloucester' s mouth a history 
which in the original version was related ab ovo, and as a 
sort of bungling prologue to the story proper. Item, some 
passages have been restored in book-form — pre-eminently to 
*'The Story of the Housewife" — that in an anterior 
publication had been unavoidably deleted through consid- 
eration of space. 

And — ''sixth and lastly'' — should confession he made 
that in the present rendering a purely arbitrary title has 
been assigned this little book; and chiefly for commercial 

V 



Olljtbalrg 

reasons, since the word ''dizain'' has been adjudged both 
untranslatable and, in its pristine form, repellantly outre. 

You are to give my makeshift, then, a wide interpretation; 
and are always to remember that in the bleak, florid age 
these tales commemorate this chivalry was much the rarelier 
significant of any personal trait than of a world-wide code 
in consonance with which all estimable people lived and 
died. Its root was the assumption {uncontested then) that 
a gentleman will always serve his God, his honor and his 
lady without any reservation; nor did the many emanating 
by-laws ever deal with special cases as concerns this triple, 
fixed, and fundamental homage. 

So here you have a chance to peer at our world's youth 
when chivalry was regnant, and common-sense and cowardice 
were still at nurse. And, questionless, these same condi- 
tions were the source of an age-long melee — such as this 
week is, happily, impossible in any of our parishes — 
wherein contended " courtesy, and humanity, friendliness, 
hardihood, love and friendship, and murder, hate, and 
virtue, and sin.'' So that I can only counsel you to do 
after the excellencies and leave the iniquity. 

And for the rest, since good wine needs no bush, and an 
inferior beverage is not likely to be bettered by arboreal adorn- 
ment, the reteller of these tales prefers to piece out his ex- 
ordium {however lamely) with *'The Printer's Preface." 
And it runs in this fashion: 

''Here begins the volume called and entitled the Dizain 
of Queens, composed and extracted from divers chronicles 
and other sources of information, by that extrem^ely ven- 
erable person and worshipful man, Messire Nicolas de 
Caen, priest and chaplain to the right noble, glorious and 
mighty prince in his time, Philippe, Duke of Burgundy, of 
Brabant, etc., in the year of the Incarnation of cur Lord 
God a thousand four hundred and seventy; and imprinted 

vi 



by me, Colard Mansion, at Bruges, in the year of our said 
Lord God a thousand four hundred and seventy-one; at the 
commandment of the right high, mighty and virtuous Prin- 
cess, my redoubted Lady, Isabella of Portugal, by the grace 
of God Duchess of Burgundy and Lotharingia, of Brabant 
and Limbourg, of Luxembourg and of Gueldres, Countess 
of Flanders, of Artois, and of Burgundy, Palatine of 
Hainault, of Holland, of Zealand and of Namur, Mar- 
que sse of the Holy Empire, and Lady of Frisia, of Salins 
and of Mechlin; whom I beseech Almighty God less to 
increase than to continue in her virtuous disposition in 
this world, and after our poor fleet existence to receive 
eternally. Amen.'' 



OIottt^tttB 



CHAP. PAGE 

Precautional V 

The Prologue i 

I. The Story of the Sestina 7 

II. The Story of the Tenson 31 

III. The Story of the Rat-Trap 53 

IV. The Story of the Choices 75 

V. The Story of the Housewife 97 

VI. The Story of the Satraps 123 

VII. The Story of the Heritage 145 

VIII. The Story of the Scabbard 153 

IX. The Story of the Navarrese 173 

X. The Story of the Fox-Brush 195 

The Epilogue ^ 219 



JIUujBtrattnnH 



*I SING OF death'" Frontispiece 

THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF" . . Facing p. 14 

IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHY " . " 50 

SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR" .... " 64 

'my prisoner!' SHE said" " 78 

'do you forsake sire EDWARD, CATHERINE?'" ... *' 102 

'hail ye THAT ARE MY KINSMEN !' " " I32 

IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN " " I48 

'you design murder?' RICHARD ASKED " " 170 

'take now YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!'" ** 186 

SO FOR A HEART-BEAT SHE SAW HIM " " I98 

NICOLAS: A SON LIVRET " " 222 



y 



* ' Afin que les entreprises honor ables et les nobles aven- 
tures et faicts d'armes soyent noblement enregistres et con- 
serves, je vats tr alter et raconter et inventer ung galimatias,'' 



THE DIZAIN OF QUEENS OF THAT NOBLE MAKER IN THE 
FRENCH TONGUE, MESSIRE NICOLAS DE CAEN, DEDICATED 
TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS ISABELLA OF PORTUGAL, OF 
THE HOUSE OF THE INDOMITABLE ALFONSO HENRIQUES, 
AND DUCHESS DOWAGER OF BURGUNDY. HERE BEGINS 
IN AUSPICIOUS WISE THE PROLOGUE. 



OIl|tualri} 



2II|0 Prnlnguf 



A sa Dame 




INASMUCH as it was by your command, 
illustrious and exalted lady, that I have 
gathered together these stories to form 
the present little book, you should the 
less readily suppose I have presumed to 
dedicate to your Serenity this trivial offer- 
ing because of my esteeming it to be not undeserving of 
your acceptance. The truth is otherwise; and your 
postulant now approaches as one not spurred toward you 
by vainglory but rather by plain equity, and simply in 
acknowledgment of the fact that he who seeks to write 
of noble ladies must necessarily implore at outset the 
patronage of her who is the light and mainstay of our 
age. In fine, I humbly bring my book to you as Phidyle 
approached another and less sacred shrine, farre pio et 
salente mica, and lay before you this my valueless mean 
tribute not as appropriate to you but as the best I have 
to offer. 

It is a little book w^herein I treat of divers queens and 
of their love-business; and with necessitated candor I 

3 



QHjittalrg 



concede my chosen field to have been harvested, and even 
scrupulously gleaned, by many writers of innumerable 
conditions. Since Dares Phrygius wrote of Queen Heleine 
and Virgil (that shrewd necromancer) of Queen Dido, 
a preponderating mass of clerks, in casting about for high 
and serious matter, have chosen, as though it w^ere by 
common instinct, to dilate upon the amours of royal 
women. Even in romance we scribblers must contrive 
it so that the fair Nicolette shall be discovered in the end 
to be no less than the King's daughter of Carthage, and 
that Sir Doon of Mayence shall never sink in his love- 
affairs beneath the degree of a Saracen princess; and we 
are backed in this old procedure not only by the au- 
thority of Aristotle but, oddly enough, by that of reason 
as well. 

Kings have their policies and wars wherewith to drug 
each appetite. But their consorts are denied these 
makeshifts; and love may rationally be defined as the 
pivot of each normal woman's life, and in consequence 
as the arbiter of that ensuing life which is eternal. Be- 
cause — as of old Horatius Flaccus demanded, though not, 
to speak the truth, of any w^oman, — 

Quo jugisf ah demons f nulla est fuga, iu licet usque 
Ad Tanairn fiigtas, usque sequetur ainor. 

And a dairymaid, let us say, may love whom she will, 
and nobody else be a penny the worse for her mistaking 
of the preferable nail whereon to hang her affections; 
whereas with a queen this choice is more portentous. 
She plays the game of life upon a loftier table, ruthlessly 
illuminated, and stakes by her least movement a tall 
pile of counters, some of which are, of necessity, the 
lives and happiness of persons whom she knows not, 
unless it be by vague report. Grandeur sells itself at 

4 



this hard price, and at no other. A queen must always 
play, in fine, as the vicar of destiny, free to choose but 
very certainly compelled to justify that choice in the 
ensuing action; as is strikingly manifested by the au- 
thentic histories of Brunhalt, and of Guenevere, and of 
swart Cleopatra, and of many others that were born 
to the barbaric queenhoods of a now extinct and dusty 
time. 

For royal persons are (I take it) the immediate and the 
responsible stewards of Heaven; and since the nature 
of each man is like a troubled stream, now muddied and 
now clear, their prayer must ever be, Defenda me, Dios, 
de me! Yes, of exalted people, and even of their near 
associates, life, because it aims more high than the 
aforementioned Aristotle, demands upon occasion a 
more great catharsis which would purge any audience 
of unmanliness, through pity and through terror, be- 
cause, by a quaint paradox, the players have been 
purged of all humanity. For in that aweful moment 
would Destiny have thrust her sceptre into the hands 
of a human being and Chance would have exalted a 
human being into usurpal of her chair. These tw^o — 
with what immortal chucklings one may facilely imagine 
— would then have left the weakling thus enthroned, 
free to direct the pregnant outcome, free to choose, and 
free to steer the conjuration either in the fashion of 
Friar Bacon or of his man, but with no intermediate 
course unbarred. Now prove thyself! saith Destiny; 
and Chance appends: Now prove thyself to he at bottom- 
a god or else a beast, and now eternally abide that choice. 
And now (O crowning irony!) we may not tell thee clearly 
by which choice thou mayst prove either. 

It is of ten such moments that I treat within this little 
book, 

5 



(Elittialrg 

You alone, I think, of all persons living have learned, 
as you have settled by so many instances, to rise above 
mortality in such a testing, and unfailingly to merit by 
your conduct the plaudits and the adoration of our other- 
wise dissentient world. You have sat often in this same 
high chair of Chance; and in so doing have both graced 
and hallowed it. Yet I forbear to speak of this, simply 
because I dare not seem to couple your well-known per- 
fection with any imperfect encomium. 

Therefore to you, madame — most excellent and noble lady, 

to whom I love to owe both loyalty and love — 

/ dedicate this little book. 



I 

iSl}t #l0rg at tif? S^tBtxna 

^' Armatz de fust e de fer e d'acier, 
Mos ostal seran hose, fregz, e semdier, 
E mas cansos sestinas e descortz, 
E mantenrai los frevols contra 'Is fortz.'* 



THE FIRST NOVEL. — ALIANORA OF PROVENCE, COMING IN 
DISGUISE AND IN ADVERSITY TO A CERTAIN CLERK, IS BY 
HIM CONDUCTED ACROSS A HOSTILE COUNTRY; AND IN 
THAT TROUBLED JOURNEY ARE MADE MANIFEST TO EITHER 
THE SNARES WHICH HAD BEGUILED THEM AFORETIME. 



3I1|^ g^torg nf tif? ^0Bttna 




IN this place we have to do with the opening 
tale of the Dizain of Queens. I abridge, 
as afterward, at discretion; and an initial 
account of the Barons' War, among other 
i superfluities, I amputate as more remark- 
able for veracity than interest. The re- 
sult, we will agree at outset, is that to the Norman cleric 
appertains whatever these tales may have of merit, where- 
as what you find distasteful in them you must impute 
to my delinquencies in skill rather than in volition. 

Within the half-hour after de Giars' death (here one 
overtakes Nicolas mid-course in narrative) Dame Alianora 
thus stood alone in the corridor of a strange house. 
Beyond the arras the steward and his lord were at irri- 
table converse. 

First, *'If the woman be hungry," spoke a high and 
peevish voice, ''feed her. If she need money, give it to 
her. But do not annoy me." 

"This woman demands to see the master of the house," 
the steward then retorted. 

"O incredible B^sotian, inform her that the master of 
the house has no time to waste upon vagabonds who 
select the middle of the night as an eligible time to pop 
out of nowhere. Why did you not do so in the beginning, 
you dolt?" He got for answer only a deferential cough, 
and very shortly continued: "This is remarkably vexa- 

9 



tious. Vox et prcBterea nihil, — ^whicli signifies, Yeck, that 
to converse with women is ahvays dehghtful. Admit 
her." This was done, and Dame Alianora came into an 
apartment Uttered with papers, where a neat and shriv- 
elled gentleman of fifty-odd sat at a desk and scowled. 

He presently said, "You may go, Yeck." He had 
risen, the magisterial attitude with which he had await- 
ed her advent cast aside. "O God!" he said; "you, ma- 
dame!" His thin hands, scholarly hands, were plucking 
at the air. 

Dame Alianora had paused, greatly astonished, and 
there was an interval before she said, "I do not recognize 
you, messire." 

"And yet, madame, I recall very clearly that some 
thirty years ago Count Berenger, then reigning in Provence, 
had about his court four daughters, each one of whom 
was afterward wedded to a king. First, Margaret, the 
eldest, now regnant in France; then Alianora, the second 
and most beautiful of these daughters, whom troubadours 
hymned as La Belle. She was married a long while ago, 
madame, to the King of England, Lord Henry, third of 
that name to reign in these islands." 

Dame Alianora's eyes were narrowing. "There is 
something in your voice," she said, "which I recall." 

He answered: "Madame and Queen, that is very likely, 
for it is a voice which sang a deal in Provence when both 
of us were younger. I concede with the Roman that I 
have somewhat deteriorated since the reign of good Cynara. 
Yet have you quite forgotten the Englishman who made 
so many songs of you ? They called him Osmund Heleigh . ' ' 

"He made the Sestina of Spring which my father 
envied," the Queen said; and then, with a new eagerness: 
"Messire, can it be that you are Osmund Heleigh?" 
He shrugged assent. She looked at him for a long time, 

10 



rather sadly, and afterward demanded if he were the 
King's man or of the barons' party. The nervous hands 
were raised in deprecation. 

"I have no poHtics," he began, and altered it, gallantly 
enough, to, "I am the Queen's man, madame." 

"Then aid me, Osmund," she said; and he answered 
with a gravity which singularly became him: 

"You have reason to understand that to my fullest 
power I will aid you." 

"You know that at Lewes these swine overcame us." 
He nodded assent. "And now they hold the King my 
husband captive at Kenil worth. I am content that he 
remain there, for he is of all the King's enemies the most 
dangerous. But, at Wallingford, Leicester has im- 
prisoned my son, Prince Edward. The Prince must be 
freed, my Osmund. Warren de Basingboume com- 
mands what is left of the royal army, now entrenched at 
Bristol, and it is he who must liberate him. Get me to 
Bristol, then. Afterward we will take Wallingford." 
The Queen issued these orders in cheery, practical fashion, 
and did not admit opposition into the account, for she 
was a capable woman. 

"But you, madame?" he stammered. "You came 
alone?" 

"I come from France, where I have been entreating — 
and vainly entreating — succor from yet another monkish 
king, the pious Lewis of that realm. Eh, what is God 
about when He enthrones these cowards, Osmund? 
Were I a king, were I even a man, I would drive these 
smug English out of their foggy isle in three days' space! 
I would leave alive not one of these curs that dare yelp 
at me! I would — " She paused, the sudden anger 
veering into amusement. ' ' See how I enrage myself when 
I think of what your people have made me suffer," the 

II 



Queen said, and shrugged her shoulders. "In effect, I 
skulked back to this detestable island in disguise, ac- 
companied by Avenel de Giars and Hubert Fitz-Herveis. 
To-night some half-dozen fellows — robbers, thorough 
knaves, like all you English, — suddenly attacked us on 
the common yonder and slew the men of our party. 
While they were cutting de Giars' throat I slipped away 
in the dark and tumbled through many ditches till I 
spied your light. There you have my story. Now get 
me an escort to Bristol." 

It was a long while before Messire Heleigh spoke. Then, 
"These men," he said — "this de Giars and this Fitz- 
Herveis — they gave their lives for yours, as I understand 
it, — -pro caris amicis. And yet you do not grieve for 
them." 

"I shall regret de Giars," the Queen said, "for he made 
excellent songs. But Fitz-Herveis? — foh! the man had 
a face like a horse." Then again her mood changed. 
"Many men have died for me, my friend. At first I wept 
for them, but now I am dry of tears." 

He shook his head. "Cato very wisely says, *If thou 
hast need of help, ask it of thy friends.* But the sweet 
friend that I remember was a clean-eyed girl, joyous and 
exceedingly beautiful. Now you appear to me one of 
those ladies of remoter times — Faustina, or Jael, or 
Artemis, the King's wife of Tauris, — they that slew men, 
laughing. I am somewhat afraid of you, madame." 

She was angry at first; then her face softened. "You 
English!" she said, only half mirthful. "Eh, my God! 
you remember me when I was happy. Now you behold 
me in my misery. Yet even now I am your Queen, 
messire, and it is not yours to pass judgment upon me." 

"I do not judge you," he hastily returned. "Rather 
I cry with him of old, Omnia inceria raiione! and I cry 

12 



with Salomon that he who meddles with the strife of 
another man is like to him that takes a hound by the 
ears. Yet listen, madame and Queen. I cannot afford 
you an escort to Bristol. This house, of which I am in 
temporary charge, is Longaville, my brother's manor. 
And Lord Brudenel, as you doubtless know, is of the 
barons' party and — scant cause for grief! — with Leicester 
at this moment. I can trust none of my brother's people, 
for I believe them to be of much the same opinion as those 
Londoners who not long ago stoned you and would have 
sunk your barge in Thames River. Oh, let us not blink 
the fact that you are not overbeloved in England. So an 
escort is out of the question. Yet I, madame, if you so 
elect, will see you safe to Bristol." 

"You? singly?" the Queen demanded. 

* ' My plan is this : Singing folk alone travel whither they 
will. We will go as jongleurs, then. I can yet manage 
a song to the viol, I dare affirm. And you must pass as 
my wife." 

He said this with a very curious simplicity. The plan 
seemed unreasonable, and at first Dame Alianora waved 
it aside. Out of the question! But reflection suggested 
nothing better ; it was impossible to remain at Longaville, 
and the man spoke sober truth when he declared any 
escort other than himself to be unprocurable. Besides, 
the lunar madness of the scheme was its strength ; that the 
Queen would venture to cross half England unprotected 
— and Messire Heleigh on the face of him was a paste- 
board buckler, — was an event which Leicester would 
neither anticipate nor on report credit. There you were! 
these English had no imagination. The Queen snapped 
her fingers and said: "Very willingly will I be your wife, 
my Osmund. But how do I know that I can trust you ? 
Leicester would give a deal for me, — any price in reason 



for the Sorceress of Provence. And you are not wealthy, 
I suspect." 

"You may trust me, mon bel esper" — ^his eyes here 
were those of a beaten child, — "since my memory is 
better than yours." Messire Osmund Heleigh gathered 
his papers into a neat pile. "This room is mine. To- 
night I keep guard in the corridor, madame. We will 
start at dawn." 

When he had gone, Dame Alianora laughed contented- 
ly. "Mon bel esper! my fairest hope! The man called 
me that in his verses — thirty years ago! Yes, I may 
trust you, my poor Osmund." 

So they set out at cockcrow. He had procured a viol 
and a long falchion for himself, and had somewhere got 
suitable clothes for the Queen; and in their aging but 
decent garb the two approached near enough to the 
similitude of w^hat they desired to be esteemed. In the 
courtyard a knot of servants gaped, nudged one another, 
but openly said nothing. Messire Heleigh, as they in- 
terpreted it, was brazening out an affair of gallantry before 
the countryside ; and they appeared to consider his casual 
observation that they would find a couple of dead men on 
the common exceedingly diverting. 

When the Queen asked him the same morning: "And 
what will you sing, my Osmund ? Shall we begin with 
the Sestina of Spring"? Osmund Heleigh grunted. 

*' I have forgotten that rubbish long ago. Omnis 
amans, amens, saith the satirist of Rome town, and with 
some show of reason." 

Followed silence. 

One sees them thus trudging the brown, naked plains 
under a sky of steel. In a pageant the woman, full- 
veined and comely, her russet gown girded up like a har- 
vester's, might not inaptly have prefigured October; and 

14 




Painting by Howard Fyle 

"THEY WERE OVERTAKEN BY FALMOUTH HIMSELF 



for less comfortable November you could nowhere have 
found a symbol more precise than her lank companion, 
humorously peevish under his white thatch of hair, and 
so constantly fretted by the sword tapping at his ankles. 

They made Hurlburt prosperously and found it vacant, 
for the news of Falmouth's advance had driven the vil- 
lagers hillward. There was in this place a child, a naked 
boy of some two years, lying on a doorstep, overlooked 
in their gross terror. As the Queen with a sob lifted this 
boy the child died. 

"Starved!" said Osmund Heleigh; "and within a 
stone's-throw of my snug home!" 

The Queen laid down the tiny corpse, and, stooping, 
lightly caressed its sparse flaxen hair. She answered 
nothing, though her lips moved. 

Past Vachel, scene of a recent skirmish, with many 
dead in the gutters, they were overtaken by Falmouth 
himself, and stood at the roadside to afford his troop 
passage. The Marquess, as he went by, flung the Queen 
a coin, with a jest sufficiently high-flavored. She knew 
the man her inveterate enemy, knew that on recognition 
he would have killed her as he would a wolf; she smiled 
at him and dropped a curtsey. 

"That is very remarkable," Messire Heleigh observed. 
" I was hideously afraid, and am yet shaking. But you, 
madame, laughed." 

The Queen replied: "I laughed because I know that 
some day I shall have Lord Falmouth's head. It will be 
very sweet to see it roll in the dust, my Osmund.'* 

Messire Heleigh somewhat dryly observed that tastes 
differed. 

At Jessop Minor a more threatening adventure befell. 
Seeking food at the Cat and Hauibois in that village, they 
blundered upon the same troop at dinner in the square 

IS 



about the inn. Falmouth and his lieutenants were 
somewhere inside the house. The men greeted the sup- 
posed purveyors of amusement with a shout; and one 
among them — a swarthy rascal with his head tied in a 
napkin — demanded that the jongleurs grace their meal 
with a song. 

At first Osmund put him off with a tale of a broken 
viol. 

But, "Haro!" the fellow blustered; "by blood and by 
nails ! you will sing more sweetly with a broken viol than 
with a broken head. I would have you understand, you 
hedge-thief, that w^e gentlemen of the sword are not par- 
tial to wordy argument." Messire Heleigh fluttered in- 
efficient hands as the men-at-arms gathered about them, 
scenting some genial piece of cruelty. *'0h, you rab- 
bit!" the trooper jeered, and caught him by the throat, 
shaking him. In the act this rascal tore open Messire 
Heleigh' s tunic, disclosing a thin chain about his neck 
and a small locket, which the fellow wrested from its 
fastening. *'Ahoi!" he continued. "Ahoi, my com- 
rades, what species of minstrel is this, who goes about 
England all hung with gold like a Cathedral Virgin! He 
and his sweetheart" — the actual w^ord was grosser — ''will 
be none the worse for an interview with the Marquess." 

The situation smacked of awkwardness, for Lord Fal- 
mouth was familiar with the Queen, and to be brought 
specifically to his attention meant death for two detected 
masqueraders. Hastily Osmund Heleigh said: 

"Messire, the locket contains the portrait of a lady 
whom in youth I loved very greatly. Save to me, it is 
valueless. I pray you, do not rob me of it." 

But the trooper shook his head with drunken solem- 
nity. " I do not like the looks of this. Yet I will sell it 
to you, as the saying is, for a song." 

i6 



*' It shall be the king of songs," said Osmund — "the 
song that Arnaut Daniel first made. I will sing for you 
a Sestina, messieurs — a Sestina in salutation of Spring." 

The men disposed themselves about the dying grass, and 
presently he sang. 

Sang Messire Heleigh: 

" Awaken! for the servitors of Spring 

Marshal his triumph! ah, make haste to see 

With what tempestuous pageantry they bring 
Mirth back to earth! hasten, for this is he 

That cast out Winter and the woes that cling 
To Winter's garments, and bade April be! 

" And now that Spring is master, let us be 
Content, and laugh as anciently in Spring 
The battle-wearied Tristan laughed, when he 
Was come again Tintagel-ward — to bring 
Glad news of Arthur's victory and see 

Ysoudcy with parted lips, that waver and cling. 

" Anon in Brittany must Tristan cling 
To this or thit sad memory, and be 

Alone, as she in Cornwall, for in Spring 
Love sows, and lovers reap anon — and he 

Is blind, and scatters baleful seed that bring 
Such fruitage as blind Love lacks eyes to see!'' 

Osmund paused here for an appreciable interval, staring 
at the Queen. You saw his flabby throat a-quiver, his 
eyes melting, saw his cheeks kindle, and youth ebb back 
into the lean man like water over a crumbling dam. His 
voice was now big and desirous. 

Sang Messire Heleigh: 

17 



(Hljiualrg 

** Love sows, and lovers reap; and ye will see 
The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling 

Never again when in the grave ye he 
Incurious of your happiness in Spring, 

And get no grace of Love there, whither he 
That bartered life for love no love may bring. 

** Here Death is; — and no Heracles may bring 
Alcestis hence, nor here may Roland see 

The eyes of Aude, nor here the wakening spring 
Vex any man with memory, for there be 

No memories that cling as cerements cling. 

No Love that baffles Death, more strong than he. 

** Us hath he noted, and for us hath he 

An hour appointed, and that hour will bring 

Oblivion. — Then, laugh! Laugh, love, and see 
The tyrant mocked, what time our bosoms clings 

What time our lips are red, what time we be 
Exultant in our little hour of spring! 

** Thus in the spring we mock at Death, though he 
Will see our children perish and will bring 
Asunder all that cling while love may be.'' 

Then Osmund put the viol aside and sat quite silent. 
The soldiery judged, and with cordial frankness stated, 
that the difficulty of his rhyming scheme did not atone 
for his lack of indecency, but when the Queen of England 
went among them with Messire Heleigh's hat she found 
them liberal. Even the fellow with the broken head 
admitted that a bargain was proverbially a bargain, and 
returned the locket with the addition of a coin. So for 
the present these two went safe, and quitted the Cat and 
Hautbois both fed and unmolested. 

i8 



®If^ ^tnrg of tlf^ ^tBixnu 

"My Osmund," Dame Alianora said, presently, "your 
memory is better than I had thought." 

" I remembered a boy and a girl," he returned. " And 
I grieved that they were dead." 

Afterward they plodded on toward Bowater, and the 
ensuing night rested in Chant r ell Wood. They had the 
good-fortune there to encounter dry and windless weather 
and a sufficiency of brushwood, with which Osmund con- 
structed an agreeable fire. In its glow these two sat, 
eating bread and cheese. 

But talk languished at the outset. The Queen had 
complained of an ague, and Messire Heleigh was sedately 
suggesting three spiders hung about the neck as an in- 
fallible corrective for this ailment, when Dame Alianora 
rose to her feet. 

"Eh, my God!" she said; "I am wearied of such un- 
gracious aid ! Not an inch of the way but you have been 
thinking of your filthy books and longing to be back at 
them! No; I except the moments when you were fright- 
ened into forgetfulness — first by Falmouth, then by the 
trooper. O Eternal Father! afraid of a single dirty 
soldier!" 

"Indeed, I was very much afraid," said Messire He- 
leigh, with perfect simplicity; '' timidus perire, madame." 

"You have not even the grace to be ashamed! Yet I 
am shamed, messire, that Osmund Heleigh should have 
become the book-muddled pedant you are. For I loved 
him — do you understand? — I loved young Osmund He- 
leigh." 

He also had risen in the firelight, and now its convulsive 
shadows marred two dogged faces. " I think it best not 
to recall that boy and girl who are so long dead. And, 
frankly, madame and Queen, the merit of the business I 
have in hand is questionable. It is you who have set 

3 19 



all England by the ears, and I am guiding you toward 
opportunities for further mischief. I must serve you. 
Understand, madame, that ancient folly in Provence yon- 
der has nothing to do with the affair. Remember that 
I cry nihil ad Andromachen! I must serve you because 
you are a woman and helpless; yet I cannot forget that 
he who spares the wolf is the sheep's murderer. It would 
be better for all England if you were dead. Hey, your 
gorgeous follies, madame! Silver peacocks set with sap- 
phires! Cloth of fine gold — " 

"Would you have me go unclothed?" Dame Alianora 
demanded, pettishly. 

"Not so," Osmund retorted; "again I say to you with 
Tertullian, 'Let women paint their eyes with the tints 
of chastity, insert into their ears the Word of God, tie 
the yoke of Christ about their necks, and adorn their 
whole person with the silk of sanctity and the damask 
of devotion.' And I say to you — " 

But Dame Alianora was yawning quite frankly. " You 
will say to me that I brought foreigners into England, that 
I misguided the King, that I stirred up strife between the 
King and his barons. Eh, my God! I am sufficiently 
familiar with the harangue. Yet listen, my Osmund: 
They sold me like a bullock to a man I had never seen. 
I found him a man of wax, and I remoulded him. They 
gave me England as a toy; I played with it. I was the 
Queen, the source of honor, the source of wealth — the 
trough, in effect, about which swine gathered. Never 
in all my English life, Osmund, has man or woman loved 
me; never in all my English life have I loved man or 
woman. Do you understand, my Osmund ? — the Queen 
has many flatterers, but no friends. Not a friend in 
the world, my Osmund! And so the Queen makes the 
best of it and amuses herself." 

20 



®I|0 S^tnrg nf ttj^ ^tBtxna 

Somewhat he seemed to understand, for he answered 
without asperity: 

"Mon bel esper, I do not find it anywhere in Holy 
Writ that God requires it of us to amuse ourselves ; but 
upon many occasions we have been commanded to live 
righteously. We are tempted in divers and insidious 
ways. And we cry with the Psalmist, 'My strength is 
dried up like a potsherd.' But God intends this, since, 
until we have here demonstrated our valor upon Satan, 
we are manifestly unworthy to be enregistered in His 
army. The great Captain must be served by proven 
soldiers. We may be tempted, but we may not yield. 

daughter of the South! we may not yield!" he cried, 
with an unheralded, odd wildness. 

"Again you preach," Dame Alianora said. "That is 
a venerable truism." 

'' Ho, madame," he returned, '*is it on that "account the 
less true?" 

Pensively the Queen considered this. ''You are a 
good man, my Osmund," she said at last, with a fine 
irrelevance, "though you are very droll. Ohime! it is 
a pity that I was born a princess! Had it been possible 
for me to be your wife, I would have been a better woman. 

1 shall sleep now and dream of that good and stupid and 
contented woman I might have been." So presently 
these two slept in Chantrell Wood. 

Followed four days of journeying. As Messer Dante 
had not yet surveyed Malebolge, they lacked a parallel 
for that which they encountered; their traverse discov- 
ered England razed, charred, and depopulate — picked 
bones of an island, a vast and absolute ruin about which 
passion-wasted men skulked like rats. They went with- 
out molestation ; malice and death had journeyed on their 
road aforetime, as heralds, and had swept it clear. 

21 



QIl|ttialrg 

At every trace of these hideous precessors Osmund He- 
leigh would say, " By a day's ride I might have prevented 
this." Or, "By a day's ride I might have saved this 
woman." Or, "By two days' riding I might have fed 
this child." 

The Queen kept Spartan silence, but daily you saw the 
fine woman age. In their slow advance every inch of 
misery was thrust before her as for inspection; meticu- 
lously she observed and appraised her handiwork. 

Bastling the royal army had recently sacked. There 
remained of this village the skeletons of two houses, and 
for the rest a jumble of bricks, rafters half -burned, many 
calcined fragments of humanity, and ashes. At Bas- 
tling, Messire Heleigh turned to the Queen toiling behind. 

"Oh, madame!" he said, in a dry whisper, "this was 
the home of so many men!" 

"I burned it," Dame Alianora replied. "That man 
we passed just now I killed. Those other men and wom- 
en — my folly killed them all. And little children, my 
Osmund! The hair like corn-floss, blood-dabbled!" 

"Oh, madame!" he wailed, in the extremity of his 
pity. 

For she stood with eyes shut, all gray. The Queen 
demanded: "Why have they not slain me? Was there 
no man in England to strangle the proud wanton ? Are 
you all cowards here?" 

"Not cowards!" he cried. "Your men and Leicester's 
ride about the world, and draw sword and slay and die 
for the right as they see it. And you for the right as ye 
see it. But I, madame! I! I, who sat snug at home 
spilling ink and trimming rose-bushes! God's world, 
madame, and I in it afraid to speak a word for Him! 
God's w^orld, and a curmudgeon in it grudging God the 
life He gave!" The man flung out his soft hands and 

22 



snarled: ''We are tempted in divers and insidious ways. 
But I, who rebuked you! behold, now, with how gross a 
snare was I entrapped!" 

"I do not understand, my Osmund." 

*'I was afraid, madame," he returned, dully. 'Every- 
where men fight and I am afraid to die." 

So they stood silent in the ruins of Bastling. 

*' Of a piece with our lives," Dame Alianora said at last. 
*'A11 ruin, my Osmund." 

But Messire Heleigh threw back his head and laughed, 
new color in his face. "Presently men will build here, 
my Queen. Presently, as in legend the Arabian bird, 
arises from these ashes a lordlier and more spacious 
town." 

Then they went forward. The next day Fate loosed 
upon them Gui Camoys, lord of Bozon, Foliot, and 
Thwenge, who, riding alone through Poges Copse, found 
there a man and a woman over their limited supper. 
The woman had thrown back her hood, and Camoys 
drew rein to stare at her. Lispingly he spoke the true 
court dialect. 

"Ma belle," said this Camoys, in friendly condescen- 
sion, "n'estez vous pas jongleurs?" 

Dame Alianora smiled up at him. "Ouais, messire; 
mon mary faict les changons — " Here she paused, with 
dilatory caution, for Camoys had leaped from his horse, 
giving a great laugh. 

"A prize! ho, an imperial prize!" Camoys shouted. 
"A peasant woman with the Queen's face, who speaks 
French! And who, madame, is this? Have you by 
any chance brought pious Lewis from oversea ? Have I 
bagged a brace of monarchs?" 

Here was imminent danger, for Camoys had known the 
Queen some fifteen years. Messire Heleigh rose to his 

23 



Qlljtualrg 



feet, his five days' beard glinting like hoar-frost as his 
mouth twitched. 

"I am Osmund Heleigh, messire, younger brother to 
the Earl of Brudenel." 

" I have heard of you, I believe — the fellow who spoils 
parchment. This is odd company, however, Messire Os- 
mund, for Brudenel's brother." 

'A gentleman must serve his Queen, messire. As 
Cicero very justly observes — " 

** I am inclined to think that his political opinions are 
scarcely to our immediate purpose. This is a high mat- 
ter, Messire Heleigh. To let the sorceress pass is, of 
course, out of the question; upon the other hand, I ob- 
serve that you lack weapons of defence. Yet if you will 
have the kindness to assist me in unarming, your courtesy 
will place our commerce on more equal footing." 

Osmund had gone very white. *' I am no swordsman, 
messire — " 

"Now, this is not handsome of you," Camoys began. 
"I warn you that people will speak harshly of us if we 
lose this opportunity of gaining honor. And besides, the 
woman will be burned. Plainly, you owe it to all three 
of us to fight." 

" — but I refer my cause to God. I am quite at your 
service." 

"No, my Osmund!" Dame Alianora then cried. "It 
means your death." 

He spread out his hands. "That is God's affair, 
madame." 

"Are you not afraid?" she breathed. 

"Of course I am afraid," said Messire Heleigh, irri- 
tably. 

After that he unarmed Camoys, and presently they 
faced each other in their tunics. So for the first time 

24 



(Sl}t 0tnrg nf tln^ BtBtxnn 

in the journey Osmund's long falchion saw daylight. He 
had thrown away his dagger, as Camoys had none. 

The combat was sufficiently curious. Camoys raised 
his left hand. " So help me God and His saints, I have 
upon me neither bone, stone, nor witchcraft where- 
through the power and the word of God might be dimin- 
ished or the devil's power increased." 

Osmund made similar oath. "Judge Thou this wom- 
an's cause!" he cried, likewise. 

Then Gui Camoys shouted, as a herald might have 
done, "Laissez les aller, laissez les aller, laissez les aller, 
les bons combatants!" and warily each moved toward 
the other. 

On a sudden Osmund attacked, desperately apprehen- 
sive of his own cowardice. Camoys lightly eluded him 
and slashed his undefended thigh, drawing much blood. 
Osmund gasped. He flung away his sword, and in the 
instant catching Camoys under the arms, threw him to 
the ground. Messire Heleigh fell with his opponent, w^ho 
in stumbling had lost his sword, and thus the two strug- 
gled unarmed, Osmund atop. But Camoys was the 
younger man, and Osmund's strength was ebbing rap- 
idly by reason of his wound. Now Camoys' tethered 
horse, rearing with nervousness, tumbled his master's 
flat-topped helmet into the road. Osmund caught it up 
and with it battered Camoys in the face, dealing severe 
blows. 

"God!" Camoys cried, his face all blood. 

" Do you acknowledge my quarrel just ?" said Osmund, 
between horrid sobs. 

"What choice have I ?" said Gui Camoys, very sensibly. 

So Osmund rose, blind with tears and shivering. The 
Queen bound up their wounds as best she might, but 
Camoys was much dissatisfied. 

25 



(Elfttialrg 

"For reasons of His own, madame," he observed, "and 
doubtless for sufficient ones, God has singularly favored 
your cause. I am neither a fool nor a pagan to question 
His decision, and you two may go your way unhampered. 
But I have had my head broken with my own helmet, 
and this I consider to be a proceeding very little condu- 
cive toward enhancing my reputation. Of your courtesy, 
messire, I must entreat another meeting." 

Osmund shrank as from a blow. Then, with a short 
laugh, he conceded that this was Camoys' right, and they 
fixed upon the following Saturday, with Poges Copse as 
the rendezvous. 

"I w^ould suggest that the combat be a outrance,** 
Gui Camoys said, "in consideration of the fact it was 
my own helmet. You must undoubtedly be aware, 
Messire Osmund, that such an affront is practically with- 
out any parallel." 

This, too, was agreed upon, and they bade one another 
farewell. 

Then, after asking if they needed money, which was 
courteously declined, Gui Camoys rode away, and sang 
as he went. Osmund Heleigh remained motionless. He 
raised quivering hands to the sky. 

"Thou hast judged!" he cried. "Thou hast judged, O 
puissant Emperor of Heaven! Now pardon! Pardon 
us twain! Pardon for unjust stew^ards of Thy gifts! 
Thou hast loaned this woman dominion over England, 
all instruments to aid Thy cause, and this trust she has 
abused. Thou hast loaned me life and manhood, agility 
and wit and strength, all instruments to aid Thy cause. 
Talents in a napkin, O God ! Repentant we cry to Thee. 
Pardon for unjust stewards! Pardon for the ungirt loin, 
for the service shirked, for all good deeds undone! Par- 
don and grace, O King of kings!" 

26 



Thus he prayed, while Gui Camoys sang, riding deeper 
into the tattered, yellowing forest. By an odd chance 
Camoys had lighted on that song made by Thibaut of 
Champagne, beginning Signor, saciez, ki or ne s'en ira, 
and this he sang with a lilt gayer than the matter of it 
countenanced. Faintly there now came to them the 
sound of his singing, and they found it, in the circum- 
stances, ominously adapt. 

Sang Camoys: 

** Et vos, par qui je n'oi onques ate, 
Descendez tuit en infer le parfont.'^ 

Dame Alianora shivered. "No, no!" she cried. "Is 
He less pitiful than we?" 

They slept that night in Ousley Meadow, and the next 
afternoon came safely to Bristol. You may learn else- 
where with what rejoicing the royal army welcomed the 
Queen's arrival, how courage quickened at sight of the 
generous virago. In the ebullition Messire Heleigh was 
submerged, and Dame Alianora saw nothing more of 
him that day. Friday there were counsels, requisitions, 
orders signed, a memorial despatched to Pope Urban, 
chief of all a letter (this in the Queen's hand throughout) 
privily conveyed to the Lady Maude de Mortemer — 
much sowing of a seed, in fine, that eventually flowered 
victory. There w^as, however, no sign of Osmund He- 
leigh, though by Dame Alianora's order he was sought. 

On Saturday at seven in the morning he came to her 
lodging in complete armor. From the open helmet his 
wrinkled face, showing like a wizened nut in a shell, 
smiled upon her questionings. 

" I go to fight Gui Camoys, madame and Queen." 

Dame Alianora wrung her hands. '* You go to your 
death." 

27 



Qlljtualrg 

He answered: "That is very likely. Therefore I am 
come to bid you farewell." 

The Queen stared at him for a while; on a sudden she 
broke into a curious fit of deep but tearless sobbing. 

*'Mon bel esper," said Osmund Heleigh, very gently, 
"what is there in all this worthy of your sorrow? The 
man w411 kill me; granted, for he is my junior by some 
fifteen years, and in addition a skilled swordsman. I fail 
to see that this is lamentable. Back to Longaville I 
cannot go after recent happenings; there a rope's end 
awaits me. Here I must in any event shortly take to the 
sword, since a beleaguered army has very little need of 
ink-pots; and shortly I must be slain in some skirmish, 
dug under the ribs perhaps by a greasy fellow I have 
never seen. I prefer a clean death at a gentleman's 
hands." 

**It is I who bring about your death!" she wailed. 
"You gave me gallant service, and I have requited you 
with death!" 

" Indeed the debt is on the other side. The trivial 
services I rendered you were such as any gentleman must 
render a woman in distress. Naught else have I afforded 
you, madame, save very anciently a Sestina. Ho, a 
Sestina! And in return you have given me a Sestina of 
fairer make — a Sestina of days, six days of life." His 
eyes were fervent now. 

She kissed him on either cheek. " Farewell, my cham- 
pion!" 

"Ay, your champion. In the twilight of life old Os- 
mund Heleigh rides forth to defend the quarrel of Alia- 
nora of Provence. Reign wisely, my Queen, that here- 
after men may not say I was slain in an evil cause. Do 
not shame my maiden venture." 

"I will not shame you," the Queen proudly said; 

23 



and then, with a change of voice: "O my Osmund! My 
Osmund!" 

He caught her by each wrist. *'Hush!" he bade her, 
roughly; and stood crushing both her hands to his lips, 
with fierce staring. '*Wife of my King! wife of my 
King!" he babbled; and then flung her from him, crying, 
with a great lift of speech : '' I have not failed you! Praise 
God, I have not failed you!" 

From her window she saw him ride away, a rich flush 
of glitter and color. In new armor with a smart em- 
blazoned surcoat the lean pedant sat conspicuously 
erect, though by this the fear of death had gripped him 
to the marrow; and as he went he sang defiantly, taunt- 
ing the weakness of his flesh. 

Sang Osmund Heleigh: 

" Love sowsy and lovers reap; and ye will see 

The loved eyes lighten, feel the loved lips cling 

Never again when in the grave ye he 
Incurious of your happiness in spring, 

And get no grace of Love there, whither he 
That bartered life for love no love may bring.'* 

So he rode away and thus out of our history. But in 
the evening Gui Camoys came into Bristol under a flag of 
truce, and behind him heaved a litter wherein lay Osmund 
Heleigh's body. 

**For the man was a brave one," Camoys said to the 
Queen, " and in the matter of the reparation he owed me 
acted very handsomely. It is fitting that he should have 
honorable interment." 

"That he shall not lack," the Queen said, and gently 
unclasped from Osmund's neck the thin gold chain, now 
locketless. ''There was a portrait here," she said; "the 

29 



portrait of a woman whom he loved in his youth, Messire 
Camoys. And all his life it lay above his heart." 

Camoys answered stiffly: "I imagine this same locket 
to have been the object which Messire Heleigh flung into 
the river, shortly before we began our combat. I do not 
rob the dead, madame." 

"The act was very like him," the Queen said. "Mes- 
sire Camoys, I think that this day is a festival in heaven." 

Afterward she set to work on requisitions in the King's 
name. But Osmund Heleigh she had interred at Am- 
bresbury, commanding it to be WTitten on his tomb that 
he died in the Queen's cause. 

How the same cause prospered (Nicolas concludes), 
how presently Dame Alianora reigned again in England 
and with what wisdom, and how in the end this great 
Queen died a nun at Ambresbury and all England wept 
therefor — this you may learn elsewhere. I have chosen 
to record six days of a long and eventful life; and (as 
Messire Heleigh might have done) I say modestly with 
him of old, Majores major a sonent. Nevertheless, I as- 
sert that many a forest was once a pocketful of acorns. 



THE END OF THE FIRST NOVEL 



II 

''Plagues a Dieu ja la nueitz non falhis, 
Ni 7 mieus amicx lone de mi no s partis, 
Ni la gayta jorn ni alba ne vis. 
Oy Dieus! oy Dieus! de V alba tan tost veT' 



THE SECOND NOVEL. — ELLINOR OF CASTILE, BEING ENAM- 
ORED OF A HANDSOME PERSON, IS IN HER FLIGHT FROM 
MARITAL OBLIGATIONS ASSISTED BY HER HUSBAND, AND 
IS IN THE END BY HIM CONVINCED OF THE RATIONALITY 
OF ALL ATTENDANT CIRCUMSTANCES. 




Sllf^ 0tora of llj^ Sl^ttfiott 

'N the year of grace 1265 (Nicolas begins), 
about the festival of Saint Peter ad 
Vincula, the Prince d.e Gatinais came 
to Burgos. Before this he had lodged 
for three months in the district of Pon- 
thieu; and the object of his southern 
journey was to assure the tenth Alphonso, then ruling 
in Castile, that the latter's sister EUinor, now resident 
at Entrechat, was beyond any reasonable doubt the 
transcendent lady whose existence old romancers had 
anticipated, however cloudily, when they fabled in re- 
mote time concerning Queen Heleine of Sparta. 

There was a postscript to his news, and a pregnant 
one. The world knew that the King of Leon and Cas- 
tile desired to be King of Germany as well, and that at 
present a single vote in the Diet would decide between 
his claims and those of his competitor, Earl Richard of 
Cornwall. De Gatinais chaffered fairly; he had a vote, 
Alphonso had a sister. So that, in effect — ohe, in effect, 
he made no question that his Majesty understood! 

The Astronomer twitched his beard and demanded 
if the fact that Ellinor had been a married woman these 
ten years past w^as not an obstacle to the plan which his 
fair cousin had proposed? 

Here the Prince was accoutred cap-a-pie, and in conse- 
quence hauled out a paper. Dating from Viterbo, Clem- 

33 



Qlijitialrg 

ent, Bishop of Rome, servant to the servants of God, 
desirous of all health and apostolical blessing for his well- 
beloved son in Christ, stated that a compact between a 
boy of fifteen and a girl of ten was an affair of no par- 
ticular moment ; and that in consideration of the covenan- 
tors never having clapped eyes upon each other since the 
wedding-day — even had not the precontract of marriage 
between the groom's father and the bride's mother ren- 
dered a consummation of the childish oath an obvious 
and a most heinous enormity — why, that, in a sentence, 
and for all his coy verbosity, the new pontiff was per- 
fectly amenable to reason. 

So in a month it was settled. Alphonso would give 
his sister to de Gatinais, and in exchange get the latter 's 
vote; and Gui Foulques of Sabionetta — now Clement, 
fourth Pope to assume that name — would annul the pre- 
vious marriage, they planned, and in exchange get an 
armament to serve him against Manfred, the late and 
troublesome tyrant of Sicily and Apulia. The scheme 
promised to each one of them that which he in partic- 
ular desired, and messengers were presently sent into 
Ponthieu. 

It is now time we put aside these Castilian matters and 
speak of other things. In England, Prince Edward had 
fought, and won, a shrewd battle at Evesham; the bar- 
ons' power was demolished, there would be no more inter- 
necine war; and spurred by the unaccustomed idleness, 
he began to think of the foreign girl he had not seen 
since the day he wedded her. She would be a w^oman 
by this, and it was befitting that he claim his wife. He 
rode w^ith Hawise d'Ebernoe to Ambresbury, and at the 
gate of the nunnery they parted, with what agonies are 
immaterial to this history's progression; the tale merely 
tells that latterly the Prince went into Lower Picardy 

34 



alone, riding at adventure as he loved to do, and thus 
came to Entrechat, where his wife resided with her moth- 
er, the Countess Johane. 

In a wood near the castle he approached a company 
of Spaniards, four in number, their horses tethered while 
these men (Oviedans, as they told him) drank about a 
great stone which served them for a table. Being thirsty, 
he asked and was readily accorded hospitality, so that 
within the instant these five fell into an amicable dis- 
course. One fellow asked his name and business in those 
parts, and the Prince gave each without hesitancy as he 
reached for the bottle, and afterward dropped it just in 
time to catch, cannily, with his naked left hand, the 
knife-blade with which the rascal had dug at the un- 
guarded ribs. The Prince was astounded, but he was 
never a subtle man: here were four knaves who, for rea- 
sons unexplained — ^but to them of undoubted cogency — 
desired the death of Sire Edward, the King of England's 
son: and manifestly there was here an actionable differ- 
ence of opinion; so he had his sword out and presently 
killed the four of them. 

Anon there came to him an apple-cheeked boy, hab- 
ited as a page, who, riding jauntily through the forest, 
lighted upon the Prince, now in bottomless vexation. 
The lad drew rein, and his lips outlined a whistle. At his 
feet were several dead men in a very untidy condition. 
And seated among them, as throned upon the boulder, 
was a gigantic and florid person, so tall that the heads of 
few people reached to his shoulder; a person of hand- 
some exterior, blond, and chested like a stallion, whose left 
eyebrow drooped so oddly that even in anger the stu- 
pendous man appeared to assure you, quite confidentially, 
that the dilapidation he threatened was an excellent jest. 

"Fair friend," said the page. "God give you joy! 
4 35 



QII|ttialrg 

and why have you converted this forest into a sham- 
bles?" 

The Prince told him of the half-hour's action as has 
been narrated. "I have perhaps been rather hasty," he 
considered by way of peroration, " and it vexes me that 
I did not spare, say, one of these lank Spaniards, if only 
long enough to ascertain why, in the name of Termagaunt, 
they should have desired my destruction." 

But midway in his tale the boy had dismounted with 
a gasp, and he was now inspecting the features of one 
carcass. "Felons, my Prince! You have slain some 
eight yards of felony which might have cheated the gal- 
lows had they got the Princess Ellinor safe to Burgos. 
Only two days ago this chalk-eyed fellow conveyed to her 
a letter." 

Prince Edward said, *'You appear, lad, to be some- 
what overheels in the confidence of my wife." 

Now the boy arose and defiantly flung back his head in 
shrill laughter. "Your wife! Oh, God ha' mercy! 
Your wife, and for ten years left to her own devices! 
Why, look you, to-day you and your wife would not 
know each other were you twain brought face to face." 

Prince Edward said, "That is very near the truth." 
But, indeed, it was the absolute truth, and as concerned 
himself already attested. 

"Sire Edward," the boy then said, "your wife has 
wearied of this long waiting till you chose to whistle for 
her. Last summer the young Prince de Gatinais came 
a-wooing — and he is a handsome man." The page made 
known all which de Gatinais and King Alphonso planned, 
the words jostling as they came in torrents, but so that 
one might understand. " I am her page, my lord. I was 
to follow her. These fellows were to be my escort, were 
to ward off possible pursuit. Cry haro, beau sire! Cry 

36 



haro, and lustily, for your wife in company with six other 
knaves is at large between here and Burgos — that unrea- 
sonable wife w^ho grew dissatisfied after a mere ten years 
of neglect." 

"I have been remiss," the Prince said, and one huge 
hand strained at his chin; *'yes, perhaps I have been 
remiss. Yet it had appeared to me — But as it is, I 
bid you mount, my lad!" he cried, in a new voice. 

The boy demanded, "And to what end?" 

"Oy Dieus, messire! have I not slain your escort? 
Why, in common reason, equity demands that I afford 
you my protection so far as Burgos, messire, just as 
equity demands I on arrival slay de Gatinais and fetch 
back my wife to England." 

The page wrung exquisite hands with a gesture which 
was but partially tinged with anguish and presently be- 
gan to laugh. Afterward these two rode southerly, in 
the direction of Castile. 

For it appeared to the intriguing little woman a di- 
verting jest that in this fashion her husband should be 
the promoter of her evasion. It appeared to her more 
diverting when in two days' space she had become gen- 
uinely fond of him. She found him rather slow of com- 
prehension, and was namelessly humiliated by the dis- 
covery that not an eyelash of the man was irritated by 
his wife's decampment; he considered, to all appearances, 
that some property of his had been stolen, and he intend- 
ed, quite without passion, to repossess himself of it, after, 
of course, punishing the thief. 

This troubled the Princess somewhat; and often, riding 
by his more stolid side, the girl's heart raged at memory 
of the decade so newly overpast which had kept her al- 
ways dependent on the charity of this or that ungracious 
patron — on any one who would take charge of her while 

37 



Qlljttialrg 

the truant husband fought out his endless squabbles in 
England. Slights enough she had borne during the pe- 
riod, and squalor, and hunger even. But now at last 
she rode toward the dear southland; and presently she 
would be rid of this big man, when he had served her pur- 
pose; and afterward she meant to wheedle Alphonso, just 
as she had always done, and later still she and Etienne 
would be very happy; and, in fine, to-morrow was to be 
a new day. 

So these two rode ever southward, and always Prince 
Edward found this new page of his — this Miguel de Rueda 
— a jolly lad, who whistled and sang inapposite snatches 
of balladry, without any formal ending or beginning, des- 
canting always with the delicate irrelevancy of a bird- 
trill. 

Sang Miguel de Rueda: 

" Lord Love, that leads me day by day 
Through many a screened and scented way, 

Finds to assuage my thirst 
No love that may the old love slay, 
None sweeter than the first. 

*' Ah, heart of mine, that beats so fast 
As this or that fair maid trips past, 

Once and with lesser stir 
We spied the hearfs-desire, at last. 

And turned, and followed her. 

" For Love had come that in the spring 
When all things woke to blossoming 

Was as a child that came 
Laughing, and filled with wondering. 
Nor knowing his own name — " 
38 



r 



2[I}0 i^tnrg nf tlj^ MtnBsxn 

"And still I would prefer to think," the big man in- 
terrupted, heavily, "that Sicily is not the only allure. 
I would prefer to think my wife so beautiful — And yet, 
as I remember her, she was nothing extraordinary." 

The page a little tartly said that people might forget a 
deal within a decade. 

For the Prince had quickly fathomed the meaning of 
the scheme hatched in Castile. "When Manfred is 
driven out of Sicily they will give the throne to de Ga- 
tinais. He intends to get both a kingdom and a hand- 
some wife by this neat affair. And in reason England 
must support my uncle against El Sabio. Why, my lad, 
I ride southward to prevent a war that would convulse 
half Europe." 

" You ride southward in the attempt to rob a miserable 
woman of her sole chance of happiness," Miguel de Rueda 
estimated. 

"That is undeniable, if she loves this thrifty Prince, as 
indeed I do not question my wife does. Yet is our hap- 
piness here a trivial matter, whereas war is a great dis- 
aster. You have not seen — as I have done, my little 
Miguel — a man viewing his death-wound with a face of 
stupid wonder? — a man about to die in his lord's quarrel 
and understanding never a word of it? Or a woman, 
say — a woman's twisted and naked body, the breasts yet 
horribly heaving, in the red ashes of some village ? or the 
already dripping hoofs which will presently crush this 
body? Well, it is to prevent a many such spectacles 
hereabout that I ride southward." 

Miguel de Rueda shuddered. But, "She has her right 
to happiness," the page stubbornly said. 

"Not so," the Prince retorted; "since it hath pleased 
the Emperor of Heaven to appoint us twain to lofty sta- 
tions, to intrust to us the five talents of the parable; 

39 



whence is our debt to Him, being fivefold, so much the 
greater than that of common persons. And therefore 
the more is it our sole right, being fivefold, to serve God 
without faltering, and therefore is our happiness, or 
our unhappiness, the more an inconsiderable matter. 
For as I have read in the Annals of the Romans — " He 
launched upon the story of King Pompey and his daugh- 
ter, whom a certain duke regarded with impure and im- 
proper emotions. "My little Miguel, that ancient king 
is our Heavenly Father, that only daughter is the rational 
soul of us, which is here delivered for protection to five 
soldiers— that is, to the five senses — to preserve it from the 
devil, the world, and the flesh. But, alas! the too-credu- 
lous soul, desirous of gazing upon the gaudy vapors of 
this world — " 

*' You whine like a canting friar," the page complained ; 
" and I can assure you that the Lady Ellinor w^as prompted 
rather than hindered by her God-given faculties of sight 
and hearing and so on when she fell in love with de 
Gatinais. Of you two, he is, beyond any question, the 
handsomer and the more intelligent man, and it was 
God who bestowed on her sufhcient wit to perceive the 
fact. And what am I to deduce from this?" 

The Prince reflected. At last he said: "I have also 
read in these same Gestes how Seneca mentions that in 
poisoned bodies, on account of the malignancy and the 
coldness of the poison, no worm will engender; but if the 
body be smitten by lightning, in a few days the carcass 
will abound with vermin. My little Miguel, both men and 
women are at birth empoisoned by sin, and then they 
produce no worm — that is, no virtue; but struck with 
lightning — that is, by the grace of God — they are aston- 
ishingly fruitful in good works." 

The page began to laugh. "You are hopelessly ab- 

40 



surd, my Prince, though you will never know it — and 1 
hate you a little — and I envy you a great deal." 

"Nay," Prince Edward said, in misapprehension, for 
the man was never quick-witted — "nay, it is not for my 
own happiness that I ride southw^ard." 

The page then said, "What is her name?" 

And Prince Edward answ^ered, very fondly, "Haw^se." 

"Her, too, I hate," said Miguel de Rueda; "and I 
think that the holy angels alone know how profoundly I 
envy her." 

In the afternoon of the same day they neared Ruffec, 
and at the ford found three brigands ready, two of whom 
the Prince slew, and the other fled. 

Next night they supped at Manneville, and sat after- 
ward in the little square, tree-chequered, that lay before 
their inn. Miguel had procured a lute from the innkeep- 
er, and strummed idly as these two debated together of 
great matters; about them w^as an immeasurable twilight, 
moonless, but tempered by many stars, and everywhere 
an agreeable conference of leaves. 

"Listen, my Prince," the boy said more lately: "here 
is one view of the affair." And he began to chant, with- 
out rhyming, without raising his voice above the pitch 
of talk, what time the lute monotonously sobbed beneath 
his fingers. 

Sang Miguel : 

"A little while and Irus and Menephtah are at sorry 
unison, and Guenevere is hut a skull. Multitudinously 
we tread toward oblivion, as ants hasten toward sugar, and 
presently Time cometh with his broom. Mtiltitiidinously 
we tread a dusty road toward oblivion; hut yonder the sun 
shines upon a grass-plot, converting it into an emerald; and 
I am aweary of the trodden path. 

41 



\ 



** Vine-crowned is she that guards the grasses yonder, and 
her breasts are naked. 'Vanity of Vanities!' saith the be- 
loved. But she whom I love seems very far away to-night, 
though I might be with her if I would. And she may not 
aid me now, for not even love is all-powerful. She is fairest 
of created women, and very wise, but she may never under- 
stand that at any time one grows aweary of the trodden path. 

" Yet though she cannot understand, this woman who 
has known me to the marrow, I must obey her laudable be- 
hests and serve her blindly. At sight of her my love closes 
over my heart like a flood, so that I am speechless and glory 
in my impotence, as one who stands at last before the kindly 
face of God. For her sake I have striven, with a good en- 
deavor, to my tiny uttermost. Pardie, I am not Priam at 
the head of his army! A little while and I will repent; 
to-night I cannot but remember that there are women whose 
lips are of a livelier tint, that life is short at best, that wine 
is a goodly thing, and that I am aweary of the trodden path. 

" She is very far from me to-night. Yonder in the Hor- 
selberg they exult and make sweet songs, songs which are 
sweeter, immeasurably sweeter, than this song of mine^ but 
in the trodden path I falter, for I am tired, tired in every 
fibre o' me, and I am aweary of the trodden path.'' 

Followed a silence. "Ignorance spoke there," the 
Prince said. "It is the song of a woman, or else of a 
boy who is very young. Give me the lute, my little 
Miguel." And presently he, too, sang. 

Sang the Prince: 

"/ was in a path, and I trod toward the citadel of the 
land's Seigneur, and on either side were pleasant and for- 
bidden meadows, having various names. And one trod 
with me who babbled of the brooding mountains and of the 

42 



211}^ Bt0v^ of tlj^ 5FFn00ti 

low-lying and adjacent clouds; of the west wind and of the 
budding fruit-trees; and he debated the significance of these 
things, and he went astray to gather violets, while I walked 
in the trodden path. 

" He babbled of genial wine and of the alert lips of women, 
of swinging censers and of pale-mouthed priests, and his 
heart was troubled by a world profuse in beauty. And he 
leaped a stile to share his allotted provision with a dying dog, 
and afterward, being hungry, a wall to pilfer apples, what 
while I walked in the trodden path. 

''He babbled of Autumn's bankruptcy and of the age-long 
lying promises of Spring; and of his own desire to be at 
rest; and of running waters and of decaying leaves. He 
babbled of the far-off stars; and he debated whether they 
were the eyes of God or gases which burned, and he demon- 
strated, very clearly, that neither existed; and at times he 
stumbled as he stared about him and munched his apples, 
so that he was all bemired, but I walked in the trodden path. 

** And the path led to the gateway of a citadel, and through 
the gateway. 'Let us not enter,' he said, 'for the citadel is 
vacant, and, moreover, I am in profound terror, and, be- 
sides, as yet I have not eaten all my apples.' And he wept 
aloud, but I was not afraid, for I had walked in the trodden 
path:' 

Again there was a silence. "You paint a dreary 
world, my Prince." 

''Nay, my little Miguel, I do but paint the world as 
the Eternal Father made it. The laws of the place are 
written large, so that all may read them ; and we know 
that every path, whether it be my trodden one or some 
byw^ay through your gayer meadows, yet leads in the 
end to God. We have our choice — or to come to Him 
as a laborer comes at evening for the day's wages fairly 

43 



Qllfttialrg 

earned, or to come as some roisterer haled before the 
magistrate." 

" I consider you to be in the right," the boy said, after 
a lengthy interval, "although I decline — and emphati- 
cally — to believe you." 

The Prince laughed. "There spoke Youth," he said, 
and he sighed as though he were a patriarch ; "but we have 
sung, w^e two, the Eternal Tenson of God's will and of 
man's desires. And I claim the prize, my little Miguel." 

Suddenly the page kissed one huge hand. " You have 
conquered, my very dull and very glorious Prince. Con- 
cerning that Hawise — " but Miguel de Rueda choked. 
"Oh, I understand! in part I understand!" the page 
wailed, and now it was Prince Edward who comforted 
Miguel de Rueda. 

For the Prince laid one hand upon his page's hair, and 
smiled in the darkness to note how soft it was, since the 
man was less a fool than at first view you might have 
taken him to be, and said : 

"One must play the game, my lad. We are no little 
people, she and I, the children of many kings, of God's 
regents here on earth; and it was never reasonable, my 
Miguel, that gentlefolk should cog at dice." 

The same night Miguel de Rueda sobbed through the 
prayer which Saint Theophilus made long ago to the 
Mother of God : 

** Dame, jc n'ose, 
Flors d' aiglentier et lis et rose, 
En qui li filz Diex se repose,'' 

and so on. Or, in other wording: "Hearken, O gracious 
Lady! thou that art more fair than any flower of the eg- 
lantine, more comely than the blossoming of the rose or 

44 



of the lily! thou to whom was confided the very Son of 
God! Hearken, for I am afraid! afford counsel to me 
that am ensnared by Satan and know not what to do! 
Never will I make an end of praying. O Virgin debonnaire ! 
O honored Lady! Thou that wast once a woman — !" 

You would have said the boy was dying; and irt sober 
verity a deal cf Miguel, de Rueda died upon this night of 
clearer vision. 

Yet he sang the next day as these two rode southward, 
although half as in defiance. 

Sang Miguel: 

''And still, wkateer the years may send — 
Though Time he proven a fickle friend, 

And Love he shown a liar — 
/ must adore until the end 

That primal heart's desire. 

** I may not hear men speak of her 
Unmoved, and vagrant pulses stir 

Whene'er she passes by, 
And I again her worshipper 

Must serve her till I die. 

" Not she that is doth pass, hut she 
That Time hath riven away from me 

And in the darkness set — 
The 7naid that I may never see, 
Or gain, or e'er forget.'' 

It was on the following day, near Bazas, these two en- 
countered Adam de Gourdon, a Provengal knight, w^ith 
whom the Prince fought for a long while, without either 
contestant giving way; and in consequence a rendezvous 

45 



(Eljttialrg 

was fixed for the November of that year, and afterward 
the Prince and de Gourdon parted, highly pleased with 
each other. 

Thus the Prince and his attendant came, in late Sep- 
tember, to Mauleon, on the Castilian frontier, and dined 
there at the Fir Cone. Three or four lackeys were about 
— some exalted person's retinue? Prince Edward haz- 
arded to the swart little landlord as the Prince and 
Miguel lingered over the remnants of their meal. 

Yes, the fellow informed them: the Prince de Gatinais 
had lodged there for a whole week, watching the north 
road, as circumspect of all passage as a cat over a mouse- 
hole. Eh, monseigneur expected some one, doubtless — 
a lady, it might be — the gentlefolk had their escapades 
like every one else. The innkeeper babbled vaguely, for on 
a sudden he was very much afraid of his gigantic patron. 

"You will show me to his room," Prince Edward said, 
with a politeness that was ingratiating. 

The host shuddered and obeyed. 

Miguel de Rueda, left alone, sat quite silent, his finger- 
tips drumming upon the table. He rose suddenly and 
flung back his shoulders, all resolution to the tiny heels. 
On the stairway he passed the black little landlord. 

"I think," the little landlord considered, "that Saint 
Michael must have been of similar appearance when he 
went to meet the Evil One. Ho, messire, will there be 
bloodshed?" 

But Miguel de Rueda had passed to the room above. 
The door was ajar. He paused there. 

De Gatinais had risen from his dinner and stood facing 
the door. He, too, was a blond man and the comeliest 
of his day. And at sight of him awoke in the woman's 
heart all of the old tenderness; handsome and brave and 
witty she knew him to be, past reason, as indeed the whole 

46 



world knew him to be distinguished by every namable 
grace; and the innate weakness of de Gatinais, which 
she alone suspected, made him now seem doubly dear. 
Fiercely she wanted to shield him, less from carnal in- 
jury than from that self-degradation she cloudily appre- 
hended to be at hand; the test was come, and Etienne 
would fail. Thus much she knew with a sick, illimitable 
surety, and she loved de Gatinais with a passion which 
dwarfed comprehension. 

**0 Madame the Virgin!" prayed Miguel de Rueda, 
"thou that wast once a woman, even as I am now a 
woman! grant that the man may slay him quickly! grant 
that he may slay Etienne very quickly, honored Lady, 
so that my Etienne may die unshamed!" 

"I must question, messire," de Gatinais was saying, 
" whether you have been well inspired. Yes, quite frank- 
ly, I do await the arrival of her who is your nominal wife ; 
and your intervention at this late stage, I take it, can 
have no outcome save to render you absurd. Nay, 
rather be advised by me, messire — " 

Prince Edward said, '*I am not here to talk." 

" For, messire, I grant you that in ordinary disputa- 
tion the cutting of one gentleman's throat by another 
gentleman is well enough, since the argument is unan- 
swerable. Yet in this case we have each of us too much 
to live for; you to govern your reconquered England, and 
I — you perceive that I am candid — to achieve in turn the 
kingship of another realm. And to secure this, possession 
of the Lady Ellinor is to me essential; to you she is 
nothing." 

''She is a woman whom I have deeply wronged," 
Prince Edward said, " and to whom, God willing, I mean 
to make atonement. Ten years ago they wedded us, 
willy-nilly, to avert the impending war 'twixt Spain and 

47 



Qlljttialrg 

England; to-day El Sabio intends to purchase all Ger- 
many, with her body as the price, you to get Sicily as her 
husband. Mort de Dieu! is a woman thus to be bought 
and sold like hog's-flesh! We have other and cleaner 
customs, we of England." 

"Eh, and who purchased the woman first?" de Gati- 
nais spat at him, and viciously, for the Frenchman now 
saw his air-castle shaken to the corner-stone. 

*'They wedded me to the child in order a great war 
might be averted. I acquiesced, since it appeared prefer- 
able that two people suffer inconvenience rather than 
many thousands be slain. And still this is my view of the 
matter. Yet afterward I failed her. Love had no clause 
in our agreement ; but I owed her more protection than 
I have afforded. England has long been no place for 
women. I thought she would comprehend that much. 
But I know very little of women. Battle and death are 
more wholesome companions, I now perceive, than such 
folk as you and Alphonso. Woman is the weaker vessel 
— the negligence was mine — I may not blame her." The 
big and simple man was in an agony of repentance. 

On a sudden he strode forward, his sword now shifted 
to his left hand and his right hand outstretched. "One 
and all, we are but weaklings in the net of circumstance. 
Shall one herring, then, blame his fellow if his fellow jostle 
him ? We walk as in a mist of error, and Belial is fertile 
in allurements ; yet always it is granted us to behold that 
sin is sin. I have perhaps sinned through anger, Messire 
de Gatinais, more deeply than you have planned to sin 
through luxury and through ambition. Let us then cry 
quits, Messire de Gatinais, and afterward part in peace, 
and in common repentance, if you so elect." 

"And yield you Ellinor?" de Gatinais said. "Nay, 
messire, I reply to you with Arnaud de Marveil, that 

48 



marvellous singer of eld, 'They may bear her from my 
presence, but they can never untie the knot which unites 
my heart to her; for that heart, so tender and so constant, 
God alone divides with my lady, and the portion which 
God possesses He holds but as a part of her domain, and 
as her vassal.'" 

"This is blasphemy," Prince Edward now retorted, 
"and for such observations alone you merit death. Will 
you always talk and talk and talk? I perceive that the 
devil is far more subtle than you, messire, and leads you 
like a pig with a ring in his nose toward gross iniquity. 
Messire, I tell you that for your soul's health I doubly 
mean to kill you now. So let us make an end of this." 

De Gatinais turned and took up his sword. "Since 
you will have it," he rather regretfully said; "yet I re- 
iterate that you play an absurd part. Your wife has 
deserted you, has fled in abhorrence of you. For three 
weeks she has been tramping God knows whither or in 
what company—" 

He was here interrupted. "What the Lady Ellinor 
has done," Prince Edward crisply said, "was at my re- 
quest. We were wedded at Burgos; it was most natural 
that we should desire our reunion to take place at Burgos ; 
and she came to Burgos with an escort which I provided." 

De Gatinais sneered. " So that is the tale you w^ill de- 
liver to the world ?" 

" When I have slain you," the Prince said, " yes. Yes, 
since she is a woman, and woman is the weaker vessel." 

" The reservation is wise. For once I am dead, Messire 
Edward, there will be none to know that you risk all for 
a drained goblet, for an orange already squeezed — quite 
dry, messire." 

"Face of God!" the Prince said. 

But de Gatinais flung back both arms in a great gesture, 

49 



Olijttialrg 

so that he knocked a flask of claret from the table at his 
rear. " I am candid, my Prince. I would not see any 
brave gentleman slain in a cause so foolish. And in con- 
sequence I kiss and tell. In effect, I was eloquent, I was 
magnificent — so that in the end her reserve was shattered 
like the wooden flask yonder at our feet. Is it worth while, 
think you, that our blood flow like this flagon's contents ?" 

"Liar!" Prince Edward said, very softly. "O hideous 
liar! Already your eyes shift!" He drew near and 
struck the Frenchman. ''Talk and talk and talk! and 
lying talk! I am ashamed while I share the world with 
a thing so base as you." 

De Gatinais hurled upon him, cursing, sobbing in an 
abandoned fury. In an instant the place resounded like 
a smithy, for there were no better swordsmen living than 
these two. The eavesdropper could see nothing clearly. 
Round and round they veered in a whirl of turmoil. 
Presently Prince Edward trod upon the broken flask, 
smashing it. His foot slipped in the spilth of wine, and 
the huge body went down like an oak, the head of it 
striking one leg of the table. 

*'A candle!" de Gatinais cried, and he panted now — 
"a hundred candles to the Virgin of Beaujolais!" He 
shortened his sword to stab the Prince of England. 

And now the eavesdropper understood. She flung 
open the door and fell upon Prince Edward, embracing 
him. The sword dug deep into her shoulder, so that she 
shrieked once with the cold pain of this wound. Then 
she rose, all ashen. 

"Liar!" she said. "Oh, I am shamed while I share 
the world with a thing so base as you!" 

In silence de Gatinais regarded her. There was a 
long interval before he said, "Ellinor!" and then again, 
"EUinor!" like a man bewildered. 

SO 




Pauitmg by II !/;,,,, I! Hiird Laijrence 



IN AN INSTANT THE PLACE RESOUNDED LIKE A SMITHV 



"I was eloquent, I was magnificent,'' she said, ''so that 
in the end her reserve was shattered! Certainly, messire, 
it is not your death which I desire, since a man dies so 
very, very quickly. I desire for you — I know not what 
I desire for you!" the girl wailed. 

" You desire that I should endure this present moment," 
de Gatinais said ; " for as God reigns, I love you, and now 
am I shamed past death." 

She said: ''And I, too, loved you. It is strange to 
think of that." 

"I was afraid. Never in my life have I been afraid 
before. But I was afraid of this terrible and fair and 
righteous man. I saw all hope of you vanish, all hope 
of Sicily — in effect, I lied as a cornered beast spits out 
his venom," de Gatinais said. 

**I know," she answered. "Give me water, Etienne." 
She washed and bound the Prince's head with a vinegar- 
soaked napkin. Ellinor sat upon the floor, the big man's 
head upon her knee. *' He will not die of this, for he is 
of strong person. Look you, Messire de Gatinais, you 
and I are not. We are so fashioned that we can enjoy 
only the pleasant things of life. But this man can en- 
joy — enjoy, mark you — the commission of any act, how- 
ever distasteful, if he think it to be his duty. There is 
the difference. I cannot fathom him. But it is now 
necessary that I become all which he loves — since he 
loves it — and that I be in thought and deed all which 
he desires. For I have heard the Tenson through." 

''You love him!" said de Gatinais. 

She glanced upward w4th a pitiable smile. "Nay, it 
is you that I love, my Etienne. You cannot understand 
— can you ? — how at this very moment every fibre of me 
— heart, soul, and body — may be longing just to comfort 
you and to give you all which you desire, my Etienne, 
s SI 



and to make you happy, my handsome Etienne, at how- 
ever dear a cost. No; you will never understand that. 
And since you may not understand, I merely bid you go 
and leave me wdth my husband." 

And then there fell between these two an infinite silence. 

"Listen," de Gatinais said; *' grant me some little 
credit for what I do. You are alone; the man is power- 
less. My fellows are within call. A word secures the 
Prince's death ; a word gets me you and Sicily. And I do 
not speak that word, for you are my lady as well as his." 

But there was no mercy in the girl, no more for him 
than for herself. The big head lay upon her breast w^hat 
time she caressed the gross hair of it ever so lightly. 
"These are tinsel oaths," she crooned, as rapt with in- 
curious content; "these are but the protestations of a 
jongleur. A word get you mxy body ? A word get you, 
in effect, all which you are capable of desiring? Then 
why do you not speak that word?" 

De Gatinais raised clenched hands. "I am shamed," 
he said; and more lately, "It is just." 

He left the room and presently rode away with his 
men. I say that he had done a knightly deed, but she 
thought little of it, never raised her head as the troop 
clattered from Maul eon, with a lessening beat which 
lapsed now into the blunders of an aging fly who dod- 
dered about the pane yonder. 

She sat thus for a long period, her meditations adrift in 
the future; and that which she foreread left her nor all 
sorry nor profoundly glad, for living seemed by this, 
though scarcely the merry and colorful business which she 
had esteemed it, yet immeasurably the more worth while. 



THE END OF THE SECOND NOVEL 



Ill 

'' Leixant a part le stil dels trohados, 
Dos grans dezigs han combatut ma pensa^ 
Mas lo voter vers un seguir dispensa; 
Yo Vvos ptiblich, amar dretament vos.'' 



THE THIRD NOVEL. MEREGRETT OF FRANCE, THINKING 

TO PRESERVE A HOODWINKED GENTLEMAN, ANNOYS A 
spider; AND BY THE GRACE OF DESTINY THE WEB OF THAT 
CUNNING INSECT ENTRAPS A BUTTERFLY, A WASP, AND 
THEN A god; who SHATTERS IT. 



Sllf? #t0rg 0f llf^ iiat-®rap 




N the year of grace 1298, a little before 
Candlemas (thus Nicolas begins), came 
letters to the first King Edward of Eng- 
land from his kinsman and ambassador 
to France, Earl Edmund of Lancaster. 
It was perfectly apparent, the Earl 
wTote, that the French King meant to surrender to the 
Earl's lord and brother neither the duchy of Guienne 
nor the Lady Blanch. 

The courier found Sire Edward at Ipswich, midway in 
celebration of his daughter's marriage to the Count of 
Holland. The King read the letters through and began 
to laugh; and presently broke into a rage such as was 
possible to the demon-tainted blood of Anjou. So that 
next day the keeper of the privy purse entered upon 
the household-books a considerable sum "to make good 
a large ruby and an emerald lost out of his coronet 
when the King's Grace was pleased to throw it into 
the fire"; and upon the same day the King recalled 
Lancaster, and more lately despatched yet another em- 
bassy into France to treat about Sire Edward's second 
marriage. This last embassy was headed by the Earl of 
Aquitaine. 

The Earl got audience of the French King at Mezelais. 
Walking alone came this Earl of Aquitaine, with a large 

55 



retinue, into the hall where the barons of France stood 
according to their rank; in russet were the big Earl and 
his attendants, but upon the scarlets and purples of the 
French lords many jewels shone; as through a corridor 
of gayly painted sunlit glass came the grave Earl to the 
dais where sat King Philippe. 

The King had risen at close sight of the new envoy, 
and had gulped once or twice, and without speaking, hur- 
riedly waved his lords out of ear-shot. His perturbation 
was very extraordinary. 

" Fair cousin," the Earl now said, without any prelude, 
** four years ago I was affianced to your sister, Dame 
Blanch. You stipulated that Gascony be given up to 
you in guaranty, as a settlement on any children I might 
have by that incomparable lady. I assented, and yield- 
ed you the province, upon the understanding, sworn to 
according to the faith of loyal kings, that within forty 
days you assign to me its seignory as your vassal. And 
I have had of you since then neither the enfeoffment nor 
the lady, but only excuses, Sire Philippe." 

With eloquence the Frenchman touched upon the 
emergencies to which the public weal so often drives men 
of high station, and upon his private grief over the ne- 
cessity — unavoidable, alas! — of returning a hard answer 
before the council; and become so voluble that Sire Ed- 
ward merely laughed, in that big-lunged and discon- 
certing way of his, and afterward lodged for a week at 
Mezclais, nominally passing by his lesser title of Earl 
of Aquitaine, and as his own ambassador. 

And negotiations became more swift of foot, since a 
man serves himself with zeal. In addition, the French 
lords could make nothing of a politician so thick-w^itted 
that he replied to every consideration of expediency 
with a parrot-like reiteration of the trivial circumstance 

56 



that already the bargain was signed and sworn to; and, 
in consequence, while daily they fumed over his stupid- 
ity, daily he gained his point. During this period he 
was, upon one pretext or another, very largely in the 
company of his affianced wife. Dame Blanch. 

This lady, I must tell you, was the handsomest of her 
day ; there could nowhere be found a creature more agree- 
able to every sense; and she compelled the eye, it is re- 
corded, not gently but in a superb fashion. And Sire 
Edward, w^ho, till this, had loved her merely by report, 
and, in accordance with the high custom of old, through 
many perusals of her portrait, now appeared besotted. 
He was an aging man, near sixty; huge and fair he was, 
with a crisp beard, and stalwart as a tower; and the 
better-read at Mezelais likened the couple to Sieur Her- 
cules at the feet of Queen Omphale when they saw the 
two so much together. 

The ensuing Wednesday the court hunted and slew a 
stag of ten in the woods of Ermenoueil, which stand 
thick about the chateau; and upon that day these two 
had dined at Rigon the forester's hut, in company with 
Dame Meregrett, the French King's younger sister. She 
sat a little apart from the betrothed, and stared through 
the hut's one window. We know nowadays it was not 
merely the trees she considered. 

Dame Blanch, it seemed, was undisposed to mirth. 
"For we have slain the stag, beau sire," she said, "and 
have made of his death a brave diversion. To-day we 
have had our sport of death, — and presently the gay years 
wind past us, as our cavalcade came tow^ard the stag, 
and God's incurious angel slays us, much as we slew the 
stag. And we will not understand, and we will wonder, 
as the stag did, in helpless wonder. And Death w^ill 
have his sport of us, as in atonement." Here her big 

57 



eyes shone, as the sun glints upon a sand-bottomed pool. 
"Ohe, I have known such happiness of late, beau sire, 
that I am hideously afraid td die." And again the 
heavily fringed eyelids lifted, and within the moment 
sank contentedly. 

For the King had murmured "Happiness!" and his 
glance was rapacious. 

"But I am discourteous," Blanch said, "to prate 
of death thus drearily. Let us flout him, then, with 
some gay song." And toward Sire Edward she handed 
Rigon's lute. 

The King accepted it. " Death is not reasonably 
mocked," Sire Edward said, "since in the end he con- 
quers, and of the very lips that gibed at him remains but 
a little dust. Nay, rather should I who already stand 
beneath a lifted sword make for my inmiediate conqueror 
a Sirvente, which is the Song of Service." 

Sang Sire Edward: 

*' / sing of Death, that cometh to the king, 

And lightly plucks hitn from the cushioned throne, 

And drowns his glory and his war faring 
In unrecorded dim oblivion, 

And girds another with the sword thereof, 
And sets another in his stead to reign, 
What time the monarch nakedly must gain 
Styx' hither shore and nakedly complain 

'Midst twittering ghosts lamenting life and love. 

** For Death is merciless: a crack-brained king 
He raises in the place of Pr ester John, 
Smites Priam, and mid-course in conquering 

Bids CcEsar pause; the wit of Salomon, 
The ivealth of Nero and the pride thereof, 

58 



And prowess of great captains — of Gawayne, 
Darius, Jeshua, and Charlemaigne — 
Wheedle and bribe and surfeit Death in vain 
And get no grace of him nor any love, 

" Incuriously he smites the armored king 
And tricks his wisest counsellor — " 

"True, O God!" murmured the tiny woman, who sat 
beside the window yonder. And Dame Meregrett rose 
and in silence passed from the room. 

The two started, and laughed in common, and after- 
ward paid little heed to her outgoing. For Sire Edward 
had put aside the lute and sat now regarding the Princess. 
His big left hand propped the bearded chin; his grave 
countenance was flushed, and his intent eyes shone under 
their shaggy brows, very steadily, like the tapers before 
an altar. 

And, irresolutely. Dame Blanch plucked at her gown; 
then rearranged a fold of it, and with composure awaited 
the ensuing action, afraid at bottom, but not at all ill- 
pleased; and always she looked downward. 

The King said: "Never before were we two alone, 
madame. Fate is very gracious to me this morning." 

"Fate," the lady considered, "has never denied much 
to the Hammer of the Scots." 

"She has denied me nothing," he sadly said, "save 
the one thing that makes this business of living seem a 
rational proceeding. Fame and power and wealth she 
has accorded me, no doubt, but never the common joys 
of life. And, look you, my Princess, I am of aging per- 
son now. During some thirty years I have ruled England 
according to my interpretation of God's will as it was 
anciently made manifest by the holy Evangelists; and 

59 



Qllfttialrg 

during that period I have ruled England not without 
odd by-ends of commendation: yet behold, to-day I for- 
get the world-applauded, excellent King Edward, and 
remember only Edward Plantagenet — hot-blooded and 
desirous man! — of whom that mtich-commended king 
has made a prisoner all these years." 

"It is the duty of exalted persons," Blanch unsteadily 
said, "to put aside such private inclinations as their 
breasts may harbor — " 

He said, " I have done what I might for the happiness 
of every Englishman within my realm saving only Ed- 
ward Plantagenet; and now I think his turn to be at 
hand." Then the man kept silence ; and his hot appraisal 
daunted her. 

"Lord," she presently faltered, "lord, in sober verity 
Love cannot extend his laws between husband and wife, 
since the gifts of love are voluntary, and husband and 
wife are but the slaves of duty — " 

" Troubadourish nonsense!" Sire Edward said; "yet 
it is true that the gifts of love are voluntary. And there- 
fore — Ha, most beautiful, what have you and I to do 
with all this chaffering over Guienne?" The two stood 
very close to each other now. 

Blanch said, " It is a high matter — " Then on a sudden 
the full-veined girl was aglow with passion. " It is a 
trivial matter." He took her in his arms, since already 
her cheeks flared in scarlet anticipation of the event. 

And thus holding her, he wooed the girl tempestuously. 
Here, indeed, was Sieur Hercules enslaved, burned by a 
fiercer fire than that of Nessus, and the huge bulk of the 
unconquerable visibly shaken by his adoration. In the 
disordered tapestry of verbiage, passion-flapped as a flag 
is by the wind, she presently beheld herself prefigured 
by Balkis, the Judean's lure, and by the Princess of Cy- 

60 



prus (in Aristotle's time), and by Nicolette, the King's 
daughter of Carthage — since the first flush of morning 
was as a rush-light before her resplendency, the man 
swore; and in conclusion, by the Countess of Tripolis, for 
love of whom he had cleft the seas, and losing whom he 
must inevitably die as Rudel did. He snapped his fingers 
now over any consideration of Guienne. He would con- 
quer for her all Muscovy and all Cataia, too, if she desired 
mere acreage. Meanwhile he wanted her, and his hard 
and savage passion beat down opposition as with a 
bludgeon. 

" Heart's emperor," the trembling girl more lately said, 
" I think that you were cast in some larger mould than 
we of France. Oh, none of us may dare resist you! and 
I know that nothing matters, nothing in all the world, 
save that you love me. Then take me, since you will it — 
and not as King, since you will otherwise, but as Edward 
Plantagenet. For listen! by good luck you have this 
afternoon despatched Rigon for Chevrieul, where to- 
morrow we hunt the great boar. And in consequence 
to-night this hut will be unoccupied." 

The man was silent. He had a gift that way when 
occasion served. 

"Here, then, beau sire! here, then, at nine, you are to 
meet me with my chaplain. Behold, he marries us, as 
glibly as though we two were peasants. Poor king 
and princess!" cried Dame Blanch, and in a voice which 
thrilled him, ''shall ye not, then, dare to be but man and 
woman?" 

"Ha!" the King said. He laughed. "The King is 
pleased to loose his prisoner ; and I will do it." He fierce- 
ly said this, for the girl was very beautiful. 

So he came that night, without any retinue, and hab- 
ited as a forester, a horn swung about his neck, into the 

6i 



Qlljttialrg 

unlighted hut of Rigon the forester, and found a wom- 
an there, though not the woman whom he had perhaps 
expected. 

" Treachery, beau sire ! Horrible treachery !" she wailed. 

"I have encountered it ere this," the big man said. 

" Presently comes not Blanch but Philippe, with many 
men to back him. And presently they will slay you. 
You have been trapped, beau sire. Ah, for the love of 
God, go! Go, while there is yet time!" 

Sire Edward reflected. Undoubtedly, to light on Ed- 
ward Longshanks alone in a forest would appear to King 
Philippe, if properly attended, a tempting chance to settle 
divers disputations, once for all; and Sire Edward knew 
the conscience of his old opponent to be invulnerable. 
The act would violate all laws of hospitality and knight- 
hood — oh, granted! but its outcome would be a very 
definite gain to France, and for the rest, merely a dead 
body in a ditch. Not a monarch in Christendom, Sire 
Edward reflected, but feared and in consequence hated 
the Hammer of the Scots, and in further consequence 
would not lift a finger to avenge him ; and not a being in 
the universe would rejoice at Philippe's achievement one- 
half so heartily as would Sire Edward's son and immediate 
successor, the young Prince Edward of Caernarvon. So 
that, all in all, ohime! Philippe had planned the affair 
with forethought. 

What Sire Edward said was, "Dame Blanch, then, 
knew of this?" But Meregrett's pitiful eyes had already 
answered him, and he laughed a little. 

" In that event I have to-night enregistered my name 
among the goodly company of Love's Lunatics — 

''Sots amoureux, sots privez, sots sauvages, 
Sots vicux, nouvcaux, et sots de tons dges,'^ 

62 



thus he scornfully declaimed, **and as yokefellow with 
Dan Merlin in his thorn-bush, and with wise Salomon 
when he capered upon the high places of Chemosh, and 
with Duke Ares sheepishly agrin within the net of Mul- 
ciber. Rogues all, madame! fools all! yet always the 
flesh trammels us, and allures the soul to such sensual de- 
lights as bar its passage toward the eternal life wherein 
alone lies the empire and the heritage of the soul. And 
why does this carnal prison so impede the soul ? Because 
Satan once ranked among the sons of God, and the Eter- 
nal Father, as I take it, has not yet forgotten the antique 
relationship — and hence it is permitted even in our late 
time that always the flesh rebel against the spirit, and 
always these so tiny and so thin-voiced tricksters, these 
highly tinted miracles of iniquity, so gracious in demeanor 
and so starry-eyed — " 

Then he turned and pointed, no longer the zealot but 
the expectant captain now. " Look, my Princess !" For in 
the pathway from which he had recently emerged stood 
a man in full armor like a sentinel. " Mort de Dieu, we 
can but try," Sire Edward said. 

''Too late," said Meregrett; and yet she followed him. 
And presently, in a big splash of moonlight, the armed 
man's falchion glittered across their way. "Back," he 
bade them, "for by the King's orders no man passes." 

"It were very easy now to strangle this herring," Sire 
Edward reflected. 

"But scarcely a whole school of herring," the fellow 
retorted. "Nay, Messire d'Aquitaine, the bushes of 
Ermenoueil are alive with my associates. The hut yon- 
der, in effect, is girdled by them — and we have our orders." 

"Concerning women?" the King said. 

The man deliberated. Then Sire Edward handed him 
three gold pieces. "There was assuredly no specific 

63 



Qlljtualrg 

mention of petticoats," the soldier now reflected, "and 
in consequence I dare to pass the Princess." 

"And in that event," Sire Edward said, "we twain had 
as well bid each other adieu." 

But Meregrett only said, " You bid me go?" 

He waved his hand. "Since there is no choice. For 
that which you have done — however tardily~I thank 
you. Meantime I can but return to Rigon's hut to re- 
arrange my toga as King Caesar did when the assassins 
fell upon him, and to encounter whatever Dame Luck 
may send with due decorum." 

"To die!" she said. 

He shrugged his broad shoulders. "In the end we 
necessarily die." 

Dame Meregrett turned and passed back into the hut 
without faltering. 

And when he had lighted the inefficient lamp which 
he found there. Sire Edward wheeled upon her in half- 
humorous vexation. "Presently come your brother and 
his tattling lords. To be discovered here with me at 
night, alone, means infamy. If Philippe chance to fall 
into one of his Capetian rages it means death." 

"Nay, lord, it means far worse than death." And she 
laughed, though not merrily. 

And now, for the first time, Sire Edward regarded her 
with profound consideration, as may we. To the finger- 
tips this so-little lady showed a descendant of the holy 
Lewis he had known and loved in old years. Small and 
thinnish she was, with soft and profuse hair that, for all 
its blackness, gleamed in the lamplight with stray ripples 
of brilliancy, as you may see a spark shudder to extinction 
over burning charcoal. The Valois nose she had, long 
and delicate in form, and overhanging a short upper-lip; 
yet the lips were glorious in tint, and her skin the very 

64 




Fainting by Howard Pyle 

"SHE HAD VIEWED THE GREAT CONQUEROR 



Hyperborean snow in tint. As for her eyes, say, gigantic 
onyxes — or ebony highly poHshed and wet with May dew. 
They were too big for her Httle face : and they made of her 
a tiny and desirous wraith which nervously endured each 
incident of life — invariably acquiescent, as a foreigner 
must necessarily be, to the custom of the country. In 
fine, this Meregrett was strange and brightly colored ; and 
she seemed always thrilled with some subtle mirth, like 
that of a Siren who notes how the sailor pauses at the 
bulwark and laughs a little (knowing the outcome), and 
does not greatly care. Yet now Dame Meregrett 's coun- 
tenance was rapt. 

And Sire Edward moved one step toward this tiny 
lady and paused. "Madame, I do not understand." 

Dame Meregrett looked up into his face unflinchingly. 
*' It means that I love you, sire. I may speak without 
shame now, for presently you die. Die bravely, sire! 
Die in such fashion as may hearten me to live." 

The little Princess spoke the truth, for always since his 
coming to Mezelais she had viewed the great conqueror 
as through an aweful haze of forerunning rumor, twin to 
that golden vapor which enswathes a god and transmutes 
whatever in corporeal man had been a defect into some 
divine and hitherto unguessed-at excellence. I must tell 
you in this place, since no other occasion offers, that 
even until the end of her life it was so. For to her what 
in other persons would have seemed but flagrant dulness 
showed, somehow, in Sire Edward, as the majestic de- 
liberation of one that knows his verdict to be decisive, 
and hence appraises cautiously ; and if sometimes his big, 
calm eyes betrayed no apprehension of the jest at which 
her lips were laughing, and of which her brain very cor- 
dially approved, always within the instant her heart con- 
vinced her that a god is not lightly moved to mirth. 

65 



ffllfitJalrg 

And now it was a god — dt'us certel — who had taken 
a woman's paltry face between his hands, half roughly. 
"And the maid is a Capet!" Sire Edward mused. 

" Never has Blanch desired you any ill, beau sire. But 
it is the Archduke of Austria that she loves, beau sire. 
And once you were dead, she might marry him. One 
cannot blame her," Meregrett considered, " since he wishes 
to marry her, and she, of course, wishes to make him 
happy." 

*'And not herself, save in some secondary way!" the 
big King said. " In part I comprehend, madame. And 
I, too, long for this same happiness, impotently now, and 
much as a fevered man might long for water. And my 
admiration for the Death whom I praised this morning 
is somewhat abated. There was a Tenson once — Lord, 
Lord, how long ago! I learn too late that truth may 
possibly have been upon the losing side — " He took up 
Rigon's lute. 

Sang Sire Edward: 

" Incuriously he smites the armored king 
And tricks his wisest counsellor — 

ay, the song ran thus. Now listen, madame — listen, 
while for me Death waits without, and for you ignominy." 
Sang Sire Edward: 

''Anon 
Will Death not hid us cease from pleasuring y 

And change for idle laughter i the sun 
The grave's long silence and the peace thereof, — 
Where we entranced, Death our Viviaine 
Implacable, may never more regain 
The unforgotten passion, and the pain 
And grief and ecstasy of life and love? 

66 



sip i^t0ra of tl|^ Sat-QIrap 

" YeUy presently, as quiet as the king 

Sleeps now that laid the walls of Ilion, 

We, too, will sleep, and overhead the spring 

Laugh, and young lovers laugh — as we have done — 

And kiss — as we, that take no heed thereof, 
But slumber very soundly, and disdain 
The world-wide heralding of winter's wane 
And swift sweet ripple of the April rain 

Running about the world to waken love. 

" We shall have done with Love, and Death be king 
And turn our nimble bodies carrion, 

Our red lips dusty; — yet our live lips cling 
Spite of that age-long severance and are one 

Spite of the grave and the vain grief thereof 
We mean to baffle, if in Death's domain 
Old memories may enter, and we twain 
May dream a little, and rehearse again 

In that unending sleep our present love. 

** Speed forth to her in sorry unison. 

My rhymes: and say Death mocks us, and is slain 
Lightly by Love, that lightly thinks thereon; 

And that were love at my disposal lain — 

All mine to take! — and Death had said, 'Refrain, 
Lest I demand the bitter cost thereof,^ 

I know that even as the weather-vane 
Follows the wind so would I follow Love^ 

Sire Edward put aside the lute. ''Thus ends the Song 
of Service," he said, "which was made not by the King 
of England but by Edward Plantagenet — hot-blooded 
and desirous man! — in honor of the one woman who 
within more years than I care to think of has attempted 
to serve but Edward Plantagenet." 
6 67 



(iifttialry 



"I do not comprehend," she said. And, indeed, she 
dared not. 

But now he held both tiny hands in his. "At best, 
your poet is an egotist. I must die presently. Mean- 
time I crave largesse, madame! ay, a great largesse, so 
that in his unending sleep your poet may rehearse our 
present love." And even in Rigon's dim light he found 
her kindling eyes not niggardly. 

So that more lately Sire Edward strode to the window 
and raised big hands toward the spear-points of the aloof 
stars. ** Master of us all!" he cried; "O Father of us all! 
the Hammer of the Scots am I! the Scourge of France, 
the conqueror of Llewellyn and of Leicester, and the 
flail of the accursed race that slew Thine only Son! the 
King of England am I who have made of England an 
imperial nation and have given to Thy Englishmen new 
laws ! And to-night I crave my hire. Never, O my Father, 
have I had of any person aught save reverence or hatred ! 
never in my life has any person loved me! And I am old, 
my Father — I am old, and presently I die. As I have 
served Thee — as Jacob wrestled with Thee at the ford of 
Jabbok — at the place of Peniel — " Against the tremu- 
lous blue and silver of the forest she saw in terror how 
horribly the big man was shaken. *'My hire! my hire!" 
he hoarsely said. "Forty long years, my Father! And 
now I will not let Thee go except Thou hear me." 

And presently he turned, stark and black in the rear- 
ward splendor of the moon. " As a prince hast thou power 
with God,'' he calmly said, ''and thou hast prevailed. 
For the King of kings was never obdurate, m'amye. 

"Child! O brave, brave child!" he said to her a little 
later, " I w^as never afraid to die, and yet to-night I would 
that I might live a trifle longer than in common reason I 
may ever hope to live!" And their lips met. 

68 



®Ij0 ^tnrg nf tlj^ Sat-®rap 

Neither stirred when Philippe the Handsome came into 
the room. At his heels were seven lords, armed cap-a-pie, 
but the entrance of eight cockchafers had meant as much 
to these transfigured two. 

The French King was an odd man, no more sane, per- 
haps, than might reasonably be expected of a Valois. 
Subtly smiling, he came forw^ard through the twilight, 
with soft, long strides, and made no outcry at recognition 
of his sister. "Take the woman away, Victor," he said, 
disinterestedly, to de Montespan. Afterward he sat down 
beside the table and remained silent for a while, in- 
tently regarding Sire Edward and the tiny woman who 
clung to Sire Edward's arm; and always in the flickering 
gloom of the hut Philippe smiled as an artist might do 
who gazes on the perfected work and knows it to be 
adroit. 

"You prefer to remain, my sister?" he presently said. 
"He bien! it happens that to-night I am in a mood for 
granting almost any favor. A little later and I will at- 
tend to you." The fleet disorder of his visage had lapsed 
again into the meditative smile which was that of Lucifer 
watching a toasted soul. "And so it ends," he said. 
"Conqueror of Scotland, Scourge of France! O uncon- 
querable king! and will the worms of Ermenoueil, then, 
pause to-morrow to consider through what a glorious 
turmoil their dinner came to them?" 

" You design murder, fair cousin?" Sire Edward said. 

The French King shrugged. " I design that within this 
moment my lords shall slay you while I sit here and do 
not move a finger. Is it not good to be a king, my cousin, 
and to sit quite still, and to see your bitterest enemy 
hacked and slain — and all the while to sit quite still, quite 
unruffled, as a king should always be? Eh, eh! I never 
lived until to-night!" 

69 



Qllfttialrg 

"Now, by Heaven," said Sire Edward, "I am your 
kinsman and your guest, I am unarmed — " 

And Philippe bowed his head. "Undoubtedly," he 
assented, " the deed is a foul one. But I desire Gascony 
very earnestly, and so long as you live you will never per- 
mit me to retain Gascony. Hence it is quite necessary, you 
conceive, that I murder you. What!" he presently said, 
"will you not beg for mercy? I had so hoped," the 
French King added, somewhat wistfully, " that you might 
be afraid to die, O huge and righteous man! and w^ould 
entreat me to spare you. To spurn the weeping con- 
queror of Llewellyn, say . . . But these sins which damn 
one's soul are in actual performance very tedious affairs ; 
and I begin to grow aweary of the game. He bien! now 
kill this man for me, messieurs." 

The English King strode forward. "O shallow trick- 
ster!" Sire Edward thundered. ''Am I not afraid? You 
baby, would you ensnare a lion with a flimsy rat-trap? 
Not so; for it is the nature of a rat-trap, fair cousin, 
to ensnare not the beast which imperiously desires and 
takes in daylight, but the tinier and the filthier beast that 
covets and under darkness pilfers — as you and your seven 
skulkers!" The man was rather terrible; not a French- 
man within the hut but had drawn back a little. 

"Listen!" Sire Edward said, and came yet farther 
toward the King of France and shook at him one fore- 
finger; "when you were in your cradle I was leading 
armies. When you were yet unbreeched I was lord of 
half Europe. For thirty years I have driven kings be- 
fore me as Fierabras did. Am I, then, a person to be 
hoodwinked by the first big-bosomed huzzy that elects 
to waggle her fat shoulders and to grant an assignation 
in a forest expressively designed for stabbings? You 
baby, is the Hammer of the Scots the man to trust a 

70 



Capet? Ill-mannered infant," the King said, with bitter 
laughter, "it is now necessary that I summon my attend- 
ants and remove you to a nursery which I have prepared 
in England." He set the horn to his lips and blew three 
blasts. 

There came many armed warriors into the hut, bearing 
ropes. Here was the entire retinue of the Earl of Aqui- 
taine; and, cursing, Sire Philippe sprang upon the English 
King, and with a dagger smote at the impassive big man's 
heart. The blade broke against the mail armor under 
the tunic. ''Have I not told you," Sire Edward wearily 
said, "that one may never trust a Capet? Now, mes- 
sieurs, bind these carrion and convey them whither I 
have directed you. Nay, but, Roger — " He conversed 
apart with his lieutenant, and what Sire Edward com- 
manded was done. The French King and seven lords of 
France went from that hut trussed like chickens. 

And now Sire Edward turned toward Meregrett and 
chafed his big hands gleefully. "At every tree-bole a 
tethered horse awaits us; and a ship awaits our party at 
Fecamp. To-morrow we sleep in England — and, Mort 
de Dieu! do you not think, madame, that within the 
Tower your brother and I may more quickly come to 
some agreement over Guienne?" 

She had shrunk from him. " Then the trap was yours ? 
It was you that lured my brother to this infamy!" 

" I am vile!" was the man's thought. And, " In effect, I 
planned it many months ago at Ipswich yonder," Sire 
Edward gayly said. " Faith of a gentleman ! your brother 
has cheated me of Guienne, and was I to waste an eternity 
in begging him to restore it? Nay, for I have a many 
spies in France, and have for some two years known your 
brother and your sister to the bottom. Granted that I 
came hither incognito, to forecast your kinfolk's imme- 

71 



diate endeavors was none too difficult; and I wanted 
Guienne — and, in consequence, the person of your brother. 
Mort de ma vie! Shall not the seasoned hunter adapt 
his snare aforetime to the qualities of his prey, and take 
the elephant through his curiosity, as the snake through his 
notorious treachery ? ' ' Now the King of England blustered . 

But the little Princess wrung her hands. " I am this 
night most hideously shamed. Beau sire, I came hither 
to aid a brave man infamously trapped, and instead I 
find an alert spider, snug in his cunning web, and pa- 
tiently waiting until the gnats of France fly near enough. 
Eh, the greater fool was I to waste my labor on the shrewd 
and evil thing which has no more need of me than I of it ! 
And now let me go hence, sire, and unmolested, for the 
sake of chivalry. Could I have come to you but as to the 
brave man I had dreamed of, I had come through the 
murkiest lane of hell; as the more artful knave, as the 
more judicious trickster" — and here she thrust him from 
her — "I spit upon you. Now let me go hence." 

He took her in his brawny arms. '' Fit mate for me," 
he said. "Little vixen, had you done otherwise I had 
devoted you to the devil." 

Anon, still grasping her, and victoriously lifting Dame 
Meregrett, so that her feet swung quite clear of the floor, 
Sire Edward said: "Look you, in my time I have played 
against Fate for considerable stakes — for fortresses, and 
towns, and strong citadels, and for kingdoms even. And 
it was only to-night I perceived that the one stake worth 
playing for is love. It were easy enough to get you for 
my wife; but I want more than that. . . . Pschutt! I 
knovv' well enough how women have these notions: and 
carefully I weighed the issue — Meregrett and Guienne to 
boot? or Meregrett and Meregrett 's love to boot? — and 
thus the final destination of my captives was but the 

72 



courtyard of Mezelais, in order I might come to you with 
hands — well! not intolerably soiled." 

"Oh, now I love you!" she cried, a-thrill with disap- 
pointment. "Yet you have done wrong, for Guienne is 
a king's ransom." 

He smiled whimsically, and presently one arm swept 
beneath her knees, so that presently he held her as one 
dandles a baby; and presently his stiff and yellow beard 
caressed her burning cheek. Masterfully he said: "Then 
let it serve as such and ransom for a king his glad and 
common manhood. Ah, m'amye, I am both very wise 
and abominably selfish. And in either capacity it ap- 
pears expedient that I leave France without any un- 
wholesome delay. More lately — he, already I have within 
my pocket the Pope's dispensation permitting me to marry 
the sister of the King of France, so that I dare to hope." 

Very shyly Dame Meregrett lifted her little mouth 
toward his hot and bearded lips. "Patience," she said, 
"is a virtue; and daring is a virtue; and hope, too, is a 
virtue: and otherwise, beau sire, I would not live." 

And in consequence, after a deal of political tergiversa- 
tion (Nicolas concludes), in the year of grace 1299, on the 
day of our Lady's nativity, and in the twenty-seventh 
year of King Edward's reign, came to the British realm, 
and landed at Dover, not Dame Blanch, as would have 
been in consonance with seasoned expectation, but Dame 
Meregrett, the other daughter of King Philippe the Bold ; 
and upon the following day proceeded to Canterbury, 
whither on the next Thursday after came Edward, King 
of England, into the Church of the Trinity at Canterbury, 
and therein espoused the aforesaid Dame Meregrett. 



THE END OF THE THIRD NOVEL 



IV 

''Sest fable es en aquest mon 
Semblans al homes que i son; 
Que el mager sen quom pot aver 
So es aniar Dieu et sa mer, 
E gardar sos comendamens.'' 



THE FOURTH NOVEL. — YSABEAU OF FRANCE, DESIROUS OF 
DISTRACTION, LOOKS FOR RECREATION IN THE TORMENT 
OF A CERTAIN KNIGHT, WHOM SHE PROVES TO BE NO MORE 
THAN human; but IN THE OUTCOME OF HER HOLIDAY 
HE CONFOUNDS THIS QUEEN BY THE WIT OF HIS REPLY. 



Ua^t S>t0ry nf tt\t (dlyntr^a 




*N the year of grace 1327 (thus Nicolas 
begins) you could have found in all Eng- 
land no lovers more ardent in affection 
or in despair more affluent than Rosa- 
mund Eastney and Sir Gregory Darrell. 
She was Lord Berners' only daughter, 
a brown beauty, and of extensive repute, thanks to 
such among her retinue of lovers as were practitioners of 
the Gay Science and had scattered broadcast innumerable 
Canzons in her honor; and Lord Berners was a man who 
accepted the world as he found it. 

** Dompnedex!" the Earl was wont to say; "in sincerity 
I am fond of Gregory Darrell, and if he chooses to make 
love to my daughter that is none of my affair. The eyes 
and the brain preserve a proverbial warfare, which is the 
source of all amenity, for without lady-service there would 
be no songs and tourneys, no measure and no good breed- 
ing; and, in a phrase, a man delinquent in it is no more 
to be valued than an ear of corn without the grain. Nay, 
I am so profoundly an admirer of Love that I can never 
willingly behold him slain, of a surfeit, by Matrimony; 
and besides, the rapscallion could not to advantage ex- 
change purses with Lazarus; and, moreover, Rosamund is 
to marry the Earl of Sarum a little after All Saints' day.'' 
''Sarum!" people echoed. **Why, the old goat has 
had two wives already!" 

77 



(dljttialrg 

And the Earl would spread his hands. "One of the 
wealthiest persons in England," he was used to submit. 

Thus it fell out that Sir Gregory came and went at his 
own discretion as concerned Lord Berners' fief of Ordish, 
all through those gusty times of warfare between Sire 
Edward and Queen Ysabeau, until at last the Queen had 
conquered. Lord Berners, for one, vexed himself not 
inordinately over the outcome of events, since he pro- 
tested the King's armament to consist of fools and the 
Queen's of rascals ; and had with entire serenity declined 
to back either Dick or the devil. 

It was in the September of this year, a little before 
Michaelmas, that they brought Sir Gregory Darrell to be 
judged by the Queen, for notoriously the knight had been 
Sire Edward's adherent. "Death!" croaked Adam Or- 
leton, who sat to the right hand, and, " Young de Spen- 
cer's death!" amended the Earl of March, with wild 
laughter ; but Ysabeau leaned back in her great chair — a 
handsome woman, stoutening now from gluttony and 
from too much wine — and regarded her prisoner with 
lazy amiability, and devoted the silence to consideration 
of how scantily the man had changed. 

"And what was your errand in Figgis Wood?" she de- 
manded in the ultimate — "or are you mad, then, Gregory 
Darrell, that you dare ride past my gates alone?" 

He curtly said, "I rode for Ordish." 

Followed silence. "Roger," the Queen ordered, sharp- 
ly, "give me the paper which I would not sign." 

The Earl of IVIarch had drawn an audible breath. The 
Bishop of London somewhat wrinkled his shaggy brows, 
as a person in shrewd and epicurean amusement, what 
while she subscribed the parchment within the moment, 
with a great scrawling flourish. 

" Take, in the devil's name, the hire of your dexterities/* 

78 




Fainhng by Howard Pylc 



MY PRISONER!" SHE SAID 



said Ysabeau, and pushed this document with her wet 
pen-point toward March, " and ride for Berkeley now upon 
that necessary business we know of. And do the rest 
of you withdraw, saving only my prisoner — my prisoner!" 
she said, and laughed not very pleasantly. 

Followed another silence. Queen Ysabeau lolled in 
her carven chair, considering the comely gentleman who 
stood before her, fettered, at the point of shameful death. 
There was a little dog in the room which had come to the 
Queen, and now licked the palm of her left hand, and the 
soft lapping of its tongue was the only sound you heard. 
"So at peril of your life you rode for Ordish, then, 
messire?" 

The tense man had flushed. "You have harried us 
of the King's party out of England — and in reason I 
might not leave England without seeing her." 

" My friend," said Ysabeau, as half in sorrow, '* I would 
have pardoned anything save that." She rose. Her 
face was dark and hot. " By God and all His saints! you 
shall indeed leave England to-morrow and the world as 
well! but not without a final glimpse of this same Rosa- 
mund. Yet listen : I, too, must ride with you to Ordish — 
as your sister, say — Gregory, did I not hang last April 
the husband of your sister? Yes, Ralph de Belomys, 
a thin man with eager eyes, the Earl of Farrington he 
was. As his widow will I ride with you to Ordish, upon 
condition you disclose to none at Ordish, saving only, if 
you will, this quite immaculate Rosamund, even a hint 
of our merry carnival. And to-morrow (you will swear 
according to the nicest obligations of honor) you must 
ride back with me to encounter — that which I may de- 
vise. For I dare to trust your naked word in this, and, 
moreover, I shall take with me a sufficiency of retainers 
to leave you no choice." 

79 



ffll|ttialrg 

Darrell knelt before her. " I can do no homage to 
Queen Ysabeau ; yet the prodigal hands of her who knows 
that I must die to-morrow and cunningly contrives, for 
old time's sake, to hearten me with a sight of Rosamund, 
I cannot but kiss." This much he did. "And I swear 
in all things to obey her will." 

"O comely fool!" the Queen said, not ungently, "I 
contrive, it may be, but to demonstrate that many ty- 
rants of antiquity were only bunglers. And, besides, I 
must have other thoughts than that which now occupies 
my heart: I must this night take holiday, lest I go 
mad." 

Thus did the Queen arrange her holiday. 

"Either I mean to torture you to-morrow," Dame 
Ysabeau said, presently, to Darrell, as these two rode 
side by side, " or else I mean to free you. In sober verity 
I do not know. I am in a holiday humor, and it is as 
the whim may take me. But you indeed do love this 
Rosamund Eastney? And of course she worships you?" 

" It is my belief, madame, that when I see her I tremble 
visibly, and my weakness is such that a child has more 
intelligence than I— and toward such misery any lady 
must in common reason be a little compassionate." 

Her hands had twitched so that the astonished palfrey 
reared. "I design torture," the Queen said; "ah, I per- 
fect exquisite torture, for you have proven recreant, you 
have forgotten the maid Ysabeau — Le Desir du Cuer, w^as 
it not, my Gregory?" 

His palms clutched at heaven. "That Ysabeau is 
dead! and all true joy is destroyed, and the world lies 
under a blight wherefrom God has averted an unfriendly 
face in displeasure! yet of all wretched persons existent 
I am he who endures the most grievous anguish, for daily 
I partake of life without any relish, and I would in truth 

80 



deem him austerely kind who slew me now that the 
maiden Ysabeau is dead." 

She shrugged, although but wearily. " I scent the raw 
stuff of a Planh," the Queen observed; ''henedicite! it 
was ever your way, my friend, to love a woman chiefly 
for the verses she inspired." And she began to sing, as 
they rode through Baverstock Thicket. 

Sang Ysabeau: 

" Man's love hath many prompters. 

But a woman s love hath none; 
And he may woo a nimble wit 

Or hair that shames the sun, 
Whilst she must pick of all one man 

And ever brood thereon — 
And for no reason, 

And not rightly, — 

" Save that the plan was foreordained 

{More old than Chalcedon, 
Or any tower of Tarshish 

Or of gleaming Babylon), 
That she must love unwillingly 

And love till life be done. 
He for a season, 

And more lightly.''' 

So to Ordish in that twilight came the Countess of 
Farrington, with a retinue of twenty men-at-arms, and 
her brother Sir Gregory Darrell. Lord Berners received 
the party with boisterous hospitality. 

'* And the more for that your sister is a very handsome 
woman," was Rosamund Eastney's comment. The pe- 
riod appears to have been after supper, and she sat with 

8i 



Qllfttialrg 



Gregory Darrell in not the most brilliant corner of the 
main hall. 

The wretched man leaned forward, bit his nether-lip, 
and then with a sudden splurge of speech informed her of 
the sorry masquerade. "The she -devil designs some 
horrible and obscure mischief, she plans I know not 
what.'' 

*'Yet I — " said Rosamund. The girl had risen, and 
she continued with an odd inconsequence. "You have 
told me you were Pembroke's squire when long ago 
he sailed for France to fetch this woman into Eng- 
land—" 

" Which you never heard!" Lord Berners shouted at this 
point. "Jasper, a lute!" And then he halloaed, more 
lately, "Gregory, Madame de Farrington demands that 
racy song you made against Queen Ysabeau during your 
last visit." 

Thus did the Queen begin her holiday. 

It was a handsome couple which came forward, hand 
quitting hand a shade too tardily, and the blinking eyes 
yet rapt; but these two were not overpleased at being 
disturbed, and the man in particular was troubled, as 
in reason he well might be, by the task assigned 
him. 

"Is it, indeed, your will, my sister," he said, "that I 
should sing — this song?" 

"It is my will," the Countess said. 

And the knight flung back his comely head and 
laughed. "What I have written I shall not disown in 
any company. It is not, look you, of my own choice 
that I sing, my sister. Yet if she bade me would I sing 
this song as willingly before Queen Ysabeau, for, Christ 
aid me! the song is true." 

Sang Sir Gregory: 

82 



'' Dame Ysabeau, la prophecie 
Que li sage dit ne ment mie, 
Que la royne sut ceus grever 
Qui tantost laquais sot aymer — " 

and so on. It was a lengthy ditty and in its wording not 
oversqueamish ; the Queen's career in England was de- 
tailed without any stuttering, and you would have found 
the catalogue unhandsome. Yet Sir Gregory sang it with 
an incisive gusto, though it seemed to him to counter- 
sign his death-warrant; and with the vigor that a man- 
gled snake summons for its last hideous stroke, it seemed 
to Ysabeau regretful of an ancient spring. 

Nicolas gives this ballad in full, hut, and for obvious 
reasons, his translator would prefer to do otherwise. 

Only the minstrel added, though Lord Berners did not 
notice it, a fire-new peroration. 

Sang Sir Gregory: 

" Ma voix mocque, mon cuer gemit — 
Peu pense a ce que la voix dit, 
Car me membre du temps jadis 
Et d'ung garson, d'amour surpriSy 
Et d'une fille — et la vois si — 
Et grandement suis esbahi.'' 

And when Darrell had ended, the Countess of Farring- 
ton, without speaking, swept her left hand toward her 
cheek and by pure chance caught between thumb and 
forefinger the autumn-numbed fly that had annoyed her. 
She drew the little dagger from her girdle and medita- 
tively cut the buzzing thing in two. Then she flung 
the fragments from her, and resting the dagger's point 
upon the arm of her chair, one forefinger upon the 
' 83 



(Eljttialrg 

summit of the hilt, considerately twirled the brilliant 
weapon. 

"This song does not err upon the side of clemency," 
she said at last, ''nor by ordinary does Queen Ysabeau." 

"That she-wolf!" said Lord Berners, comfortably. 
" Hoo, Madame Gertrude! since the Prophet Moses wrung 
healing waters from a rock there has been no such miracle 
recorded." 

"We read, Messire de Berners, that when the she-wolf 
once acknowledges a master she will follow him as faith- 
fully as any dog. Nay, my brother, I do not question 
your sincerity, yet you sing with the voice of an unhon- 
ored courtier. Suppose Queen Ysabeau had heard your 
song all through and then had said — for she is not as the 
run of w^omen — 'Messire, I had thought till this there 
was no thorough man in England saving Roger Morti- 
mer. I find him tawdry now, and — I remember. Come 
you, then, and rule the England that you love as you may 
love no woman, and rule me, messire, for I find even in 
your cruelty — England! bah, we are no pygmies, you and 
I!'" the Countess said with a great voice; '"yonder is 
squabbling Europe and all the ancient gold of Africa, 
ready for our taking! and past that lies Asia, too, and its 
painted houses hung w4th bells, and cloud-wrapt Tar- 
tary, wherein we twain may yet erect our equal thrones, 
whereon to receive the tributary emperors! For we 
are no pygmies, you and I.'" She paused and more 
lately shrugged. "Suppose Queen Ysabeau had said 
this much, my brother?" 

Darrell was more pallid, as the phrase is, than a sheet, 
and the lute had dropped unheeded, and his hands were 
clenched. 

" I would answer, my sister, that as she has found in 
England but one man, I have found in England but one 

84 



woman — the rose of all the world." His eyes were turned 
at this toward Rosamund Eastney. ** And yet," the man 
stammered, "for that I, too, remember — " 

"Nay, in God's name! I am answered," the Countess 
said. She rose, in dignity almost a queen. "We have 
ridden far to-day, and to-morrow we must travel a deal 
farther — eh, my brother? I am a trifle overspent, Mes- 
sire de Berners." And her face had now the weary 
beauty of an idol's. 

So the men and women parted. Madame de Farring- 
ton kissed her brother in leaving him, as was natural ; and 
under her caress his stalwart person shuddered, but not 
in repugnance; and the Queen went bedward regretful 
of an ancient spring and singing hushedly. 

Sang Ysabeau: 

" Were the All-Mother wise, life (shaped anotherwise) 
Would he all high and true; 
Could I he otherwise I had heen otherwise 
Simply he cause of you, 
Who are no longer you. 

^' Life with its pay to he hade us essay to he 
What we became, — / helieve 
Were there a ivay to he what it was play to he 
I would not greatly grieve . . . 
And I neither laugh nor grieve!'' 

Ysabeau would have slept that night within the cham- 
ber of Rosamund Eastney had either slept at all. As 
concerns the older I say nothing. The girl, though soon 
aware of frequent rustlings near at hand, lay quiet, 
half -forgetful of the poisonous woman yonder. The 
girl was now fulfilled with a great blaze of exultation: 

85 



(dljitJalrg 

to-morrow Gregory must die, and then perhaps she might 
find time for tears; but meanwhile, before her eyes, the 
man had flung away a kingdom and Hfe itself for love of 
her, and the least nook of her heart ached to be a shade 
more worthy of the sacrifice. 

After it might have been an hour of this excruciate 
ecstasy the Countess came to Rosamund's bed. "Ay," 
the woman hollowly began, "it is indisputable that his 
hair is like spun gold and that his eyes resemble sun- 
drenched waters in June. And that when this Gregory 
laughs God is more happy. Ma belle, I was familiar 
with the routine of your meditations ere you were born." 

Rosamund said, quite simply: "You have known him 
always. I envy the circumstance, Madame Gertrude — 
you alone of all women in the world I envy, since you, 
his sister, being so much older, must have known him 
always." 

" I know him to the core, my girl," the Countess an- 
swered, and afterward sat silent, one bare foot jogging 
restlessly ;" yet am I two years the junior — Did you 
hear nothing, Rosamund?" 

"Nay, Madame Gertrude, I heard nothing." 

"Strange!" the Countess said; "let us have lights, since 
I can no longer endure the overpopulous darkness." She 
kindled, with twitching fingers, three lamps and looked 
in vain for more. "It is as yet dark yonder, w^here the 
shadows quiver very oddly, as though they would rise 
from the floor — do they not, my girl ? — and protest vain 
things. Nay, Rosamund, it has been done; in the mo- 
ment of death men's souls have travelled farther and have 
been visible; it has been done, I tell you. And he would 
stand before me, with pleading eyes, and reproach me 
in a voice too faint to reach my ears — but I would see 
him — and his groping hands would clutch at my hands 

86 



as though a dropped veil had touched me, and with the 
contact I would go mad!" 

"Madame Gertrude!" the girl now stammered, in com- 
municated terror. 

'^Poor innocent dastard!" the woman said, '*I am 
Ysabeau of France." And when Rosamund made as 
though to rise, in alarm, Queen Ysabeau caught her 
by the shoulder. ** Bear witness when he comes I never 
hated him. Yet for my quiet it was necessary that it 
suffer so cruelly, the scented, pampered body, and no 
mark be left upon it! Eia! even now he suffers! Nay, 
I have lied. I hate the man, and in such fashion as you 
will comprehend only when you are Sarum's wife." 

** Madame and Queen!" the girl said, "you will not 
murder me!" 

"I am tempted!" the Queen hissed. "O little slip of 
girlhood, I am tempted, for it is not reasonable you should 
possess everything that I have lost. Innocence you 
have, and youth, and untroubled eyes, and quiet dreams, 
and the glad beauty of the devil, and Gregory Darrell's 
love — " Now Ysabeau sat down upon the bed and 
caught up the girl's face between two fevered hands. 
"Rosamund, this Darrell perceives within the moment, 
as I do, that the love he bears for you is but what he re- 
members of the love he bore a certain maid long dead. 
Eh, you might have been her sister, Rosamund, for you 
are very like her. And she, poor wench — why, I could 
see her now, I think, were my eyes not blurred, somehow, 
almost as though Queen Ysabeau might weep! But she 
was handsomer than you, since your complexion is not 
overclear, praise God!" 

Woman against woman they were. " He has told me 
of his intercourse with you," the girl said, and this was a 
lie flatfooted. "Nay, kill me if you will, madame, since 

87 



you are the stronger, yet, with my dying breath, Gregory 
has loved but me." 

**Ma belle," the Queen answered, and laughed bitterly, 
"do I not know men? He told you nothing. And to- 
night he hesitated, and to-morrow, at the lifting of my 
finger, he will supplicate. Throughout his life has Greg- 
ory Darrell loved me, O white, palsied innocence! and he 
is mine at a whistle. And in that time to come he will 
desert you, Rosamund — though with a pleasing Canzon 
— and they will give you to the gross Earl of Sarum, as 
they gave me to the painted man who was of late our 
King! and in that time to come you will know your body 
to be your husband's makeshift when he lacks leisure to 
seek out other recreation! and in that time to come you 
will long at first for death, and presently your heart will 
be a flame within you, my Rosamund, an insatiable 
flame! and you will hate your God because He made you, 
and hate Satan because in some desperate hour he tricked 
you, and hate all masculinity because, poor fools, they 
scurry to obey your whim! and chiefly hate yourself be- 
cause you are so pitiable! and devastation only will you 
love in that strange time which is to come. It is adjacent, 
my Rosamund." 

The girl kept silence. She sat erect in the tumbled 
bed, her hands clasping her knees, and appeared to de- 
liberate what Dame Ysabeau had said. The plentiful 
brown hair fell about this Rosamund's face, which was 
white and shrewd. **A part of what you say, madame, 
I understand. I know that Gregory Darrell loves me, 
yet I have long ago acknowledged he loves me but as one 
pets a child, or, let us say, a spaniel which reveres and 
amuses one. I lack his wit, you comprehend, and so he 
never speaks to me all that he thinks. Yet a part of it 
he tells me, and he loves me, and w^ith this I am content. 

88 



Assuredly, if they give me to Sarum I shall hate Saruni 
even more than I detest him now. And then, I think, 
Heaven help me! that I would not greatly grieve — Oh, 
you are all evil!" Rosamund said; "and you thrust 
thoughts into my mind I may not grapple with!" 

"You will comprehend them," the Queen said, "when 
you know yourself a chattel, bought and paid for," 

The Queen laughed. She rose, and either hand 
strained toward heaven. " You are omnipotent, yet have 
You let me become that into which I am transmuted," 
she said, very low. 

Anon she began, as though a statue spoke through 
motionless and pallid lips. "They have long urged me, 
Rosamund, to a deed which by one stroke would make 
me mistress of these islands. To-day I looked on Gregory 
Darrell, and knew that I was wise in love — and I had but 
to crush a filthy worm to come to him. Eh, and I was 
tempted — !" 

The fearless girl said : " Let us grant that Gregory loves 
you very greatly, and me just when his leisure serves. 
You may offer him a cushioned infamy, a colorful and 
brief delirium, and afterward demolishment of soul and 
body; I offer him contentment and a level life, made up 
of tiny happenings, it may be, and lacking both in abysses 
and in skyey heights. Yet is love a flame wherein must 
the lover's soul be purified, as an ore by fire, even to its 
own discredit; and thus, madame, to judge between us 
I dare summon you." 

"Child, child!" the Queen said, tenderly, and with a 
smile, "you are brave; and in your fashion you are wise; 
yet you will never comprehend. But once I was in heart 
and soul and body all that you are to-day ; and now I am 
Queen Ysabeau. Assuredly, it would be hard to yield 
mv single chance of happiness; it would be hard to know 

89 



that Gregory Darrell must presently dwindle into an ox 
well-pastured, and garner of life no more than any ox; 
but to say, 'Let this girl become as I, and garner that 
which I have garnered — !' Did you in truth hear 
nothing, Rosamund?" 

''Why, nothing save the wind." 

"Strange!" said the Queen; "since all the while that 1 
have talked with you I have been seriously annoyed by 
shrieks and various imprecations! But I, too, grow cow- 
ardly, it maybe — Nay, I know," she said, and in a reso- 
nant voice, " that I am by this mistress of broad England, 
until my son — my own son, born of my body, and in glad 
anguish, Rosamund — knows me for what I am. For I 
have heard — Coward! O beautiful sleek coward!" the 
Queen said ; "I would have died without lamentation 
and I was but your plaything!" 

"Madame Ysabeau — !" the girl stammered, and ran 
toward her, for the girl had risen, and she was terrified. 

"To bed!" said Ysabeau; "and put out the lights lest 
he come presently. Or perhaps he fears me now too much 
to come to-night. Yet the night approaches, none the 
less, when I must lift some arras and find him there, 
chalk- white, with painted cheeks, and rigid, and smiling 
very terribly, or look into some mirror and behold there 
not myself but him — and in that instant I will die. 
Meantime I rule, until my son attains his manhood. Eh, 
Rosamund, my only son was once so tiny, and so helpless, 
and his little crimson mouth groped toward me, helplessly, 
and save in Bethlehem, I thought, there was never any 
child more fair — But I must forget all that, for even 
now he plots. Hey, God orders matters very shrewdly, 
my Rosamund." 

And timidly the girl touched one shoulder. " In part, I 
understand, madame and Queen." 

90 



'*You understand nothing," said Ysabeau; '*how 
should you understand whose breasts are yet so tiny? 
Nay, put out the Hght! though I dread the darkness, 
Rosamund — For they say that hell is poorly lighted 
— and they say — " Then Queen Ysabeau shrugged. 
Plerself blew out each lamp. 

"We know this Gregory Darrell," the Queen said in 
the darkness, and aloud, " ay, to the marrow we know him, 
however steadfastly we blink, and we know the present 
turmoil of his soul; and in common-sense what chance 
have you of victory?" 

" None in common-sense, madame, and yet you go too 
fast. For man is a being of mingled nature, we are told 
by those in holy orders, and his life here but one unending 
warfare between that which is divine in him and that 
which is bestial, while impartial Heaven attends as arbiter 
of the cruel tourney. Always his judgment misleads the 
man, and his faculties allure him to a truce, however 
brief, with iniquity. His senses raise a mist about his 
goings, and there is not an endowment of the man but in 
the end plays traitor to his interest, as of His wisdom 
God intends; so that when the man is overthrown, God 
the Eternal Father may, in reason, be neither vexed no^ 
grieved if only he takes heart to rise again. And when, 
betrayed and impotent, the man elects to fight out the 
allotted battle, defiant of common-sense and of the 
counsellors which God Himself accorded, I think that they 
hold festival in heaven." 

"A very pretty sermon," said the Queen, and w^th 
premeditation yawned. 

Followed a silence, vexed only on the purposeless 
Septem.ber winds ; but I believe that neither of these two 
slept with an inappropriate profundity. 

About dawn one of the Queen's attendants roused Sir 

91 



Qlljtiialrg 

Gregory Darrell and presently conducted him into the 
hedged garden of Ordish, where Ysabeau walked in tran- 
quil converse with Lord Berners. The old man was in 
high good-humor. 

"My lad," said he, and clapped Sir Gregory upon the 
shoulder, "you have, I do protest, the very phoenix of 
sisters. I was never happier." And he went away 
chuckling. 

The Queen said in a toneless voice, "We ride for 
Blackfriars now." 

Darrell responded, " I am content, and ask but leave to 
speak, and briefly, with Dame Rosamund before I die." 

Then the woman came more near to him. " I am not 
used to beg, but within this hour you die, and I have 
loved no man in all my life saving only you. Sir Gregory 
Darrell. Nor have you loved any person as you loved 
me once in France. Nay, to-day, I may speak freely, 
for with you the doings of that boy and girl are matters 
overpast. Yet were it otherwise — eh, weigh the matter 
carefully! for absolute mistress of England am I now, 
and entire England would I give you, and such love as that 
slim, white innocence has never dreamed of would I give 
you, Gregory Darrell — No, no! ah. Mother of God, not 
you!" The Queen clapped one hand upon his lips. 

"Listen," she quickly said, as a person in the crisis of 
panic ; "I spoke to tempt you. But you saw, and clearly, 
that it was the sickly whim of a wanton, and you never 
dreamed of yielding, for you love this Rosamund Eastney, 
and you know me to be vile. Then have a care of me! 
The strange woman am I of whom we read that her house 
is the way to hell, going down to the chambers of death. 
Yea, many strong men have been slain by me, and 
futurely will many others be slain, it may be; but never 
you among them, my Gregory, who are more wary, and 

92 






more merciful, and know that I have need to lay aside at 
least one comfortable thought against eternity." 

"I concede you to have been imwise — " he hoarsely 
said. 

About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious 
colors, but the air of this new day seemed raw and chill. 

Then Rosamund came through the opening in the hedge. 
"Nay, choose," she wearily said; "the woman offers life 
and empery and wealth, and it may be, even a greater 
love than I am capable of giving you. I offer a dis- 
honorable death within the moment." 

And again, with that peculiar and imperious gesture, 
the man flung back his head, and he laughed. " I am I! 
and I will so to live that I may face without shame not 
only God, but even my own scrutiny." He w^heeled upon 
the Queen and spoke henceforward very leisurely. "I 
love you; all my life long I have loved you, Ysabeau, 
and even now I love you: and you, too, dear Rosamund, 
I love, though with a difference. And every fibre of my 
being lusts for the power that you would give me, Ysabeau, 
and for the good which I would do with it in the England 
I or Roger Mortimer must rule; as every fibre of my 
being lusts for the man that I would be could I choose 
death without debate, and for the man which you would 
make of me, my Rosamund. 

"The man! And what is this man, this Gregory 
Darrell, that his welfare be considered? — an ape who 
chatters to himself of kinship with the archangels while 
filthily he digs for groundnuts! This much I know, at 
bottom, durst I but be honest. 

" Yet more clearly do I perceive that this same man, 
like all his fellows, is a maimed god who walks the world 
dependent upon many wise and evil counsellors. He 
must measure, and to a hair's-breadth, every content of 

93 



the world by means of a bloodied sponge, tucked some- 
where in his skull, which is ungeared by the first cup of 
wine and ruined by the touch of his own finger. He 
must appraise all that he judges with no better instru- 
ments than two bits of colored jelly, with a bungling 
makeshift so maladroit that the nearest horologer's ap- 
prentice could have devised a more accurate device. In 
fine, he is under penalty condemned to compute eternity 
with false weights and to estimate infinity with a yard- 
stick: and he very often does it. For though, 'If then 
I do that which I would not I consent unto the law,' 
saith even the Apostle; yet the braver Pagan answers 
him, 'Perceive at last that thou hast in thee something 
better and more divine than the things which cause 
the various effects and, as it were, pull thee by the 
strings.' 

''There lies the choice which every man must make — 
or rationally, as his reason goes, to accept his own limita- 
tions and make the best of his allotted prison-yard ? or 
stupendously to play the fool and swear even to himself 
(while his own judgment shrieks and proves a flat denial), 
that he is at will omnipotent ? You have chosen long ago, 
my poor proud Ysabeau; and I choose now, and dif- 
ferently: for poltroon that I am! being now in a cold 
drench of terror, I steadfastly protest I am not much 
afraid, and I choose death, madame." 

It was toward Rosamund that the Queen looked, and 
smiled a little pitifully. "Should Queen Ysabeau be 
angry or vexed or very cruel now, my Rosamund? for 
at bottom she is glad." 

More lately the Queen said : "I give you back your 
plighted word. I ride homeward to my husks, but you 
remain. Or rather, the Countess of Farrington departs 
for the convent of Ambresbury, disconsolate in her 

94 



widowhood and desirous to have done with worldly 
affairs. It is most natural she should relinquish to her 
beloved and only brother all her dower-lands — or so at 
least Messire de Berners acknowledges. Here, then, is 
the grant, my Gregory, that conveys to you those lands 
of Ralph de Belomys which last year I confiscated. 
And this tedious Messire de Berners is willing now — nay, 
desirous — to have you for a son-in-law." 

About them fell the dying leaves, of many glorious 
colors, but the air of this new day seemed raw and chill, 
what while, very calmly, Dame Ysabeau took Sir Gregory's 
hand and laid it upon the hand of Rosamund Eastney. 
"Our paladin is, in the outcome, a mortal man, and 
therefore I do not altogether envy you. Yet he has his 
moments, and you are capable. Serve, then, not only 
his desires but mine also, dear Rosamund." 

There was a silence. The girl spoke as though it was 
a sacrament. "I w411, madame and Queen." 

Thus did the Queen end her holiday. 

A little later the Countess of Farrington rode from 
Ordish with all her train save one; and riding from that 
place, where love was, she sang very softly, and as to 
herself. 

Sang Ysabeau: 

''As with her dupes dealt Circe 
Life deals with hers, par die! 
Reshaping without }nercy, 
And shaping swinishly, 
To wallow swinishly, 
And for eternity — 

^'Though, harder than the witch was, 
Life, changing ne'er the whole, 
95 



01 1) t u a I r g 

Transmutes the body, which was 
Proud garment of the soul, 
And briefly drugs the soul, 
Whose ruin is her goal — 

''And means by this thereafter 
A subtler mirth to get. 
And mock with bitterer laughter 
Her helpless dupes' regret, 
Their swinish dull regret 
For what they half forget.'' 

And within the hour came Hubert Frayne to Ordish, 
on a foam-specked horse, as he rode to announce to the 
King's men the King's barbaric murder overnight, at 
Berkeley Castle, by Queen Ysabeau's order. 

"Ride southward," said Lord Berners, and panted as 
they buckled on his disused armor; "but harkee, Frayne! 
if you pass the Countess of Farrington's company, speak 
no syllable of your news, since it is not convenient that 
a lady so thoroughly and so praiseworthily — Lord, Lord, 
how I have fattened! — so intent on holy things, in fine, 
should have her meditations disturbed by any such un- 
settling tidings. Hey, son-in-law?" 

Sir Gregory Darrell laughed, and very bitterly. " He 
that is without blemish among yoti — " he said. Then 
they armed completely. 



THE END OF THE FOURTH NOVEL 



V 
®1|0 g>t0ra 0f ti^t ^anstmxft 

*' Selh que m blasma vostr' amor ni m defen 
Non podon far en re mon cor mellor, 
Ni'l dous dezir quieu ai de vos major, 
Ni Venveya' ni'l dezir, ni'l talent 



THE FIFTH NOVEL. — PHILIPPA OF HAINAULT DARES TO 
LOVE UNTHRIFTILY, AND BY THE PRODIGALITY dt HER 
AFFECTION SHAMES TREACHERY, AND COMMON-SENSE, 
AND HIGH ROMANCE, QUITE STOLIDLY; BUT, AS LOVING 
GOES, IS OVERTOPPED BY HER MORE STOLID SQUIRE. 




'N the year of grace 1326, upon Walburga's 
Eve, some three hours after sunset (thus 
Nicolas begins) , had you visited a certain 
garden on the outskirts of Valenciennes, 
you might there have stumbled upon a 
big, handsome boy, prone on the turf, 
where by turns he groaned and vented himself in sullen 
curses. The profanity had its poor palliation. Heir to 
England though he was, you must know that his father 
in the flesh had hounded him from England, as more 
recently his uncle Charles the Handsome had driven 
him from France. Now had this boy's mother and he 
come as suppliants to the court of that stalwart noble- 
man Sire William (Count of Hainault, Holland, and 
Zealand, and Lord of Friesland), where their arrival had 
evoked the suggestion that they depart at their earliest 
convenience. To-morrow, then, these footsore royalties, 
the Queen of England and the Prince of Wales, would 
be thrust out-o'-doors to resume the weary beggarship, 
to knock again upon the obdurate gates of thisunsym- 
pathizing king or that deaf emperor. 

Accordingly the boy aspersed his destiny. At hand a 
nightingale carolled as though an exiled prince were the 
blithest spectacle the moon knew. 

There came through the garden a tall girl, running, stum- 
bling in her haste. " Hail, King of England! " she panted. 
8 99 



(Elfittalrg 

"Do not mock me, Philippa!" the boy half -sobbed. 
Sulkily he rose to his feet. 

"No mockery here, my fair sweet friend. Nay, I have 
told my father all which happened yesterday. I pleaded 
for you. He questioned me very closely. And when 
I had ended, he stroked his beard, and presently struck 
one hand upon the table. 'Out of the mouth of babes!' 
he said. Then he said: 'My dear, I believe for certain 
that this lady and her son have been driven from their 
kingdom wrongfully. If it be for the good of God to 
comfort the afflicted, how much more is it commend- 
able to help and succor one who is the daughter of 
a king, descended from royal lineage, and to whose 
blood we ourselves are related!' And accordingly he 
and your mother have their heads together yonder, 
planning an invasion of England, no less, and the 
dethronement of your wicked father, my Edward. And 
accordingly — hail. King of England !" The girl clapped 
her hands gleefully, what time the nightingale sang 
on. 

But the boy kept momentary silence. Even in youth 
the Plantagenets were never handicapped by excessively 
tender hearts; yesterday in the shrubbery the boy had 
kissed this daughter of Count William, in part because 
she was a healthy and handsome person, and partly, and 
with consciousness of the fact, as a necessitated hazard 
of futurity. Well! he had found chance- taking not un- 
fortunate. With the episode as foundation. Count 
William had already builded up the future queenship of 
England. A wealthy count could do — and, as it seemed, 
was now in train to do — indomitable deeds to serve his 
son-in-law; and now the beggar of five minutes since 
foresaw himself, with this girl's love as ladder, mounting 
to the high habitations of the King of England, the 

lOO 



Lord of Ireland, and the Duke of Aquitaine. Thus they 
would herald him. 

So he embraced the girl. "Hail, Queen of England!" 
said the Prince; and then, " If I forget — " His voice 
broke awkwardly. " My dear, if ever I forget — !" Their 
lips met now, what time the nightmgale discoursed as on 
a wager. 

Presently was mingled with the bird's descant low 
singing of another kind. Beyond the yew- hedge as these 
two stood silent, breast to breast, passed young Jehan 
Kuypelant, the Brabant page, fitting to the accompani- 
ment of a lute his paraphrase of the song which Archi- 
lochus of Sicyon very anciently made in honor of Venus 
Melaenis, the tender Venus of the Dark. 

At a gap in the hedge the Brabanter paused. His 
melody was hastily gulped. You saw, while these two 
stood heart hammering against heart, his lean face 
silvered by the moonlight, his mouth a tiny abyss. 
Followed the beat of lessening footsteps, while the night- 
ingale improvised his envoi. 

But earlier Jehan Kuypelant also had sung, as though 
in rivalry with the bird. 

Sang Jehan Kuypelant: 

''Hearken and heed, Melcenis! 

For all that the litany ceased 
When Time had taken the victim, 

And flouted thy pale-lipped priest, 
And set astir in the temple 

Where burned the fire of thy shrine 
The owls and wolves of the desert — 

Yet hearken, {the issue is thine!) 
And let the heart of Atys, 

At last, at last, he mine! 

lOI 



QUfttialrg 

''For I have followed, nor faltered — 

Adrift in a land of dreams 
Where laughter and loving and wonder 

Contend as a clamor of streams, 
I have seen and adored the Sidonian, 

Implacable, fair and divine — 
And bending low, have implored thee 

To hearken, {the issue is thine!) 
And let the heart of Atys, 

At last, at last, be mine!'' 

It is time, however, that we quit this subject and speak 
of other matters. Just twenty years later, on one August 
day in the year of grace 1346, Master John Copeland — 
as men now called the Brabant page, now secretary to the 
Queen of England — brought his mistress the unhandsome 
tidings that David Bruce had invaded her realm with 
forty thousand Scots to back him. The Brabanter found 
the Queen in company with the Idngdom's arbitress — 
Dame Catherine de Salisbury, whom King Edward, 
third of that name to reign in Britain, and now warring 
in France, very notoriously adored and obeyed. 

This king, indeed, had been despatched into France 
chiefly, they narrate, to release the Countess' husband, 
William de Montacute, from the French prison of the 
Chatelet. You may appraise her dominion by this fact: 
chaste and shrewd, she had denied all to King Edward, 
and in consequence he could deny her nothing; so she 
sent him to fetch back her husband, whom she almost 
loved. That armament had sailed from Southampton 
on Saint George's day. 

These two women, then, shared the Brabanter 's ex- 
ecrable news. Already Northumberland, Westmoreland, 
and Durham were the broken meats of King David. 

102 




Painting by William Hurd Laurence 

"'DO YOU FORSAKE SIRE EDWARD. CATHERINE?' 



OIlj^ i^tnrg nf lift i^^nBtrnxft 

The Countess presently exclaimed: **Let me pass, sir! 
My place is not here." 

Philippa said, half hopefully, "Do you forsake Sire 
Edward, Catherine?'' 

*' Madame and Queen," the Countess answered, "in 
this world every man must scratch his own back. My 
lord has entrusted to me his castle of Wark, his fiefs in 
Northumberland. These, I hear, are being laid waste. 
Were there a thousand men-at-arms left in England I 
would say fight. As it is, our men are yonder in France 
and the island is defenceless. Accordingly I ride for the 
north to make what terms I may with the King of Scots." 

Now you might have seen the Queen's eyes flame. 
"Undoubtedly," said she, "in her lord's absence it is 
the wife's part to defend his belongings. And my lord's 
fief is England. I bid you God-speed, Catherine." And 
when the Countess was gone, Philippa turned, her round 
face all flushed. "She betrays him! she compounds with 
the Scot! Mother of Christ, let me not fail!" 

"A ship must be despatched to bid Sire Edward 
return," said the secretary. "Otherwise all England is 
lost." 

"Not so, John Copeland! Let Sire Edward conquer 
in France, if such be the Trinity's will. Always he has 
dreamed of that, and if I bade him return now he would 
be vexed." 

"The disappointment of the King," John Copeland 
considered, "is a lesser evil than allowing all of us to be 
butchered." 

"Not to me, John Copeland," the Queen said. 

Now came many lords into the chamber, seeking 
Madame Philippa. "We must make peace with the 
Scottish rascal! — England is lost! — A ship must be sent 
entreating succor of Sire Edward!" So they shouted. 

103 



(Hlftualry 

''Messieurs," said Queen Philippa, "who commands 
here? Am I, then, some woman of the town?" 

Ensued a sudden silence. John Copeland, standing 
by the seaward window, had picked up a lute and was 
fingering the instrument half-idly. Now the Marquess 
of Hastings stepped from the throng. "Pardon, High- 
ness. But the occasion is urgent." 

"The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen 
assented, deep in meditation. 

John Copeland flung back his head and without prelude 
began to carol lustily. 

Sang John Copeland : 

" There are fairer men than Atys, 

And many are wiser than he — 
How should I heed them? — whose fate is 

Ever to serve and to he 
Ever the lover of Atys, 

And die that Atys may dine, 
Live if he need me — Then heed me, 

And speed me, {the moment is thine!) 
And let the heart of Atys, 

At last, at last, he mine! 

^^ Fair is the form unheholden, 

And golden the glory of thee 
Whose voice is the voice of a vision, 

Whose face is the foam of the sea, 
And the fall of whose feet is the flutter 

Of hreezes in hirches and pine. 
When thou drawest near me, to hear me. 

And cheer me, (the moment is thine!) 
And let the heart of Atys, 

At last, at last, he mine!'' 
104 



I must tell you that the Queen shivered, as with extreme 
cold. She gazed toward John Copeland wonderingly. 
The secretary was as of stone, fretting at his lute-strings, 
head downcast. Then in a while the Queen turned to 
Hastings. 

''The occasion is very urgent, my lord," the Queen 
assented. "Therefore it is my will that to-morrow one 
and all your men be mustered at Blackheath. We will 
take the field without delay against the King of Scots." 

The riot began anew. "Madness!" they shouted; 
"lunar madness! We can do nothing until the King 
return with our army!" 

"In his absence," the Queen said, "I command here." 

"You are not Regent," the Marquess said. Then he 
cried, "This is the Regent's affair!" 

"Let the Regent be fetched," Dame Philippa said, very 
quietly. Presently they brought in her son, Messire 
Lionel, now a boy of eight years, and Regent, in name 
at least, of England. 

Both the Queen and tne Marquess held papers. " High- 
ness," Lord Hastings began, "for reasons of state, which 
I need not here explain, this document requires your 
signature. It is an order that a ship be despatched in 
pursuit of the King. Your Highness may remember the 
pony you admired yesterday?" The Marquess smiled 
ingratiatingly. "Just here, your Highness — a cross- 
mark." 

"The dappled one?" said the Regent; "and all for 
making a little mark?" The boy jumped for the pen. 

" Lionel," said the Queen, " you are Regent of England, 
but you are also my son. If you sign that paper you 
will beyond doubt get the pony, but you will not, I think, 
care to ride him. You will not care to sit down at all, 
Lionel." 

105 



Qlljitialrg 

The Regent considered. "Thank you very much, my 
lord," he said in the ultimate, "but I do not like ponies 
any more. Do I sign here, mother?" 

Philippa handed the Marquess a subscribed order to 
muster the English forces at Blackheath; then another, 
closing the English ports. "My lords," the Queen said, 
"this boy is the King's vicar. In defying him, you defy 
the King. Yes, Lionel, you have fairly earned a pot 
of jam for supper." 

Then Hastings went away without speaking. That 
night assembled at his lodgings, by appointment, Viscount 
Heringaud, Adam Frere, the Marquess of Orme, Lord 
Stourton, the Earls of Neville and Gage, and Sir Thomas 
Rokeby. These seven found a long table there littered 
with pens and parchment; to the rear of it, a lackey be- 
hind him, sat the Marquess of Hastings, meditative over 
a cup of Bordeaux. 

Presently Hastings said: "My friends, in creating our 
womankind the Maker of us all was beyond doubt ac- 
tuated by laudable and cogent reasons; so that I can 
merely lament my inability to fathom these reasons. 
I shall obey the Queen faithfully, since if I did otherwise 
Sire Edward would have my head off within a day of his 
return. In consequence, I do not consider it convenient 
to oppose his vicar. To-morrow I shall assemble the 
tatters of troops which remain to us, and to-morrow 
we march northward to inevitable defeat. To-night I 
am sending a courier into Northumberland. He is an 
obliging person, and would convey — to cite an instance 
— eight letters quite as blithely as one." 

Each man glanced furtively about him. England was 
in a panic by this, and knew itself to lie before the Bruce 
defenceless. The all-powerful Countess of Salisbury had 
compounded with King David ; now Hastings too, their 



generalissimo, compounded. What the devil! loyalty 
was a sonorous word, and so was patriotism, but, after 
all, one had estates in the north. 

The seven wrote in silence. When they had ended, 
I must tell you that Hastings gathered the letters into 
a heap, and without glancing at the superscriptures, 
handed all these letters to the attendant lackey. **For 
the courier," he said. 

The fellow left the apartment. Presently there was a 
clatter of hoofs without, and Hastings rose. He was a 
gaunt, terrible old man, gray-bearded, and having high 
eyebrows that twitched and jerked. 

"We have saved our precious skins," said he. "Hey, 
you Iscariots! I commend your common - sense, mes- 
sieurs, and I request you to withdraw. Even a damned 
rogue such as I has need of a cleaner atmosphere when he 
would breathe." The seven went away without further 
speech. 

They narrate that next day the troops marched for 
Durham, where the Queen took up her quarters. The 
Bruce had pillaged and burned his way to a place called 
Beaurepair, within three miles of the city. He sent 
word to the Queen that if her men were willing to come 
forth from the town he would abide and give them battle. 

She replied that she accepted his offer, and that the 
barons would gladly risk their lives for the realm of their 
lord the King. The Bruce grinned and kept silence, 
since he had in his pocket letters from nine-tenths of 
them protesting they w^ould do nothing of the sort. 

There is comedy here. On one side you have a horde 
of half -naked savages, a shrewd master holding them 
in leash till the moment be auspicious; on the other, 
a housewife at the head of a tiny force lieutenanted by 
perjurers, by men already purchased. God knows the 

107 



Olllttialrg 

dreams she had of miraculous victories, what time her 
barons trafficked in secret with the Bruce. On the Sat- 
urday before Michaelmas, when the opposing armies 
marshalled in the Bishop's Park, at Auckland, it is 
recorded that not a captain on either side believed the 
day to be pregnant with battle. There would be a decent 
counterfeit of resistance; afterward the little English 
army would vanish pell-mell, and the Bruce would be 
master of the island. The farce was prearranged, the 
actors therein were letter-perfect. 

That morning at daybreak John Copeland came to 
the Queen's tent, and informed her quite explicitly how 
matters stood. He had been drinking overnight with 
Adam Frere and the Earl of Gage, and after the third 
bottle had found them candid. "Madame and Queen, 
we are betrayed. The Marquess of Hastings, our com- 
mander, is inexplicably smitten with a fever. He will not 
fight to-day. Not one of your lords w411 fight to-day." 
Master Copeland laid bare such part of the scheme as 
yesterday's conviviality had made familiar. "Therefore 
I counsel retreat. Let the King be summoned out of 
France." 

But Queen Philippa shook her head, as she cut up 
squares of toast and dipped them in milk for the Regent's 
breakfast. "Sire Edward would be vexed. He has 
always intended to conquer France. I shall visit the 
Marquess as soon as Lionel is fed — do you know, John 
Copeland, I am anxious about Lionel ; he is irritable and 
coughed five times during the night — and then I will 
attend to this affair." 

She found the Marquess in bed, groaning, the coverlet 
pulled up to his chin. "Pardon, Highness," said Lord 
Hastings, "but I am an ill man. I cannot rise from this 
couch." 

io8 



"I do not question the gravity of your disorder," the 
Queen retorted, ''since it is well known that the same 
illness brought about the death of Iscariot. Nevertheless, 
I bid you get up and lead our troops against the Scot." 

Now the hand of the Marquess veiled his countenance. 
But, " I am an ill man," he muttered, doggedly. " I can- 
not rise from this couch." 

There was a silence. 

"My lord," the Queen presently began, "without is an 
army prepared — ay, and quite able — to defend our 
England. The one requirement of this army is a leader. 
Afford them that, my lord — ah, I know that our peers 
a^e sold to the Bruce, yet our yeomen at least are honest. 
Give them, then, a leader, and they cannot but conquer, 
since God also is honest and incorruptible. Pardieu! a 
woman might lead these men, and lead them to victory!" 

Hastings answered: "I am an ill man. I cannot rise 
from this couch." 

You saw that Philippa w^as not beautiful. You per- 
ceived that to the contrary she was superb, saw the soul 
of the woman aglow, gilding the mediocrities of color and 
curve as a conflagration does a hovel. 

"There is no man left in England," said the Queen, 
"since Sire Edward went into France. Praise God, I am 
his wife!" And she was gone without flurry. 

Through the tent-flap Hastings beheld all that which 
followed. The English force was marshalled in four 
divisions, each commanded by a bishop and a baron. 
You could see the men fidgeting, puzzled by the delay; 
as a wind goes about a corn-field, vague rumors were 
going about those wavering spears. Toward them rode 
Philippa, upon a white palfrey, alone and perfectly tran- 
quil. Her eight lieutenants were now gathered about 
her in voluble protestation, and she heard them out. 

109 



Afterward she spoke, without any particular violence, 
as one might order a strange cur from his room. Then 
the Queen rode on, as though these eight declaiming 
persons had ceased to be of interest, and reined up before 
her standard-bearer, and took the standard in her hand. 
She began again to speak, and immediately the army was 
in an uproar; the barons were clustering behind her, 
in stealthy groups of two or three whisperers each; all 
were in the greatest amazement and knew not what to 
do ; but the army was shouting the Queen's name. 

''Now is England shamed," said Hastings, "since a 
woman alone dares to encounter the Scot. She will 
lead them into battle — and by God! there is no braver 
person under heaven than yonder Dutch Frau! Friend 
David, I perceive that your venture is lost, for those men 
would within the moment follow her to storm hell if she 
desired it." 

He meditated and more lately shrugged. "And so 
would I," said Hastings. 

A little afterward a gaunt and haggard old man, bare- 
headed and very hastily dressed, reined his horse by the 
Queen's side. ''Madame and Queen," said Hastings, "I 
rejoice that my recent illness is departed. I shall, by 
God's grace, on this day drive the Bruce from England." 

Philippa was not given to verbiage. Doubtless she 
had her emotions, but none was visible upon the honest 
face; yet one plump hand had fallen into the big- veined 
hand of Hastings. "I welcome back the gallant gentleman 
of yesterday. I was about to lead your army, my friend, 
since there was no one else to do it, but I was hideously 
afraid. At bottom every woman is a coward." 

"You were afraid to do it," said the Marquess, "but 
you were going to do it, because there was no one else to 
do it! Ho, madame! had I an army of such cowards 

no 



I would drive the Scot not past the Border but beyond 
the Orkneys." 

The Queen then said, "But you are unarmed." 

''Highness," he repHed, "it is surely apparent that I, 
who have played the traitor to two monarchs within the 
same day, cannot with either decency or comfort survive 
that day." He turned upon the lords and bishops twitter- 
ing about his horse's tail. "You merchandise, get back 
to your stations, and if there was ever an honest woman 
in any of your families, the which I doubt, contrive to 
get yourselves killed this day, as I mean to do, in the 
cause of the honestest and bravest woman our time has 
known." Immediately the English forces marched to- 
ward Merrington. 

Philippa returned to her pavilion and inquired for 
John Copeland. He had ridden off, she was informed, 
armed, in company with five of her immediate re- 
tainers. She considered this strange, but made no comi- 
ment. 

You picture her, perhaps, as spending the morning in 
prayer, in beatings upon her breast, and in lamentations. 
Philippa did nothing of the sort. As you have heard, she 
considered her cause to be so clamantly just that to 
expatiate to the Holy Father upon its merits were an 
impertinence; it was not conceivable that He would fail 
her; and in any event, she had in hand a deal of sewing 
which required immediate attention. Accordingly she 
settled down to her needlework, while the Regent of 
England leaned his head against her knee, and his mother 
told him that ageless tale of Lord Huon, who in a wood 
near Babylon encountered the King of Faery, and sub- 
sequently stripped the atrocious Emir of both beard 
and daughter. All this the industrious woman narrated 
in a low and pleasant voice, while the wide-eyed Regent 

III 



Olljiualrij 

attended and at the proper intervals gulped his cough- 
mixture. 

You must know that about noon Master John Cope- 
land came into the tent. "We have conquered," he said. 
"Now, by the Face!" — thus, scoffingly, he used her hus- 
band's favorite oath — -"now, by the Face! there was 
never a victory more complete ! The Scottish army is as 
those sands which dried the letters King Ahasuerus ga\'e 
the admirable Esther!" 

"I rejoice," the Queen said, looking up from her sewing, 
"that we have conquered, though in nature I expected 
nothing else — Oh, horrible !" She sprang to her feet with 
a cry of anguish: and here in little you have the entire 
woman; the victory of her armament was to her a thing 
of course, since her cause was just, whereas the loss of 
two front teeth by John Copeland was a genuine calamity. 

He drew her toward the tent-flap, which he opened. 
Without was a mounted knight, in full panoply, his arms 
bound behind him, surrounded by the Queen's five re- 
tainers. "In the rout I took him," said John Copeland; 
"though, as my mouth witnesses, I did not find this 
David Bruce a tractable prisoner." 

"Is that, then, the King of Scots ?" Philippa demanded, 
as she mixed salt and water for a mouth-wash; and 
presently: "Sire Edward should be pleased, I think. 
Will he not love me a little now, John Copeland?" 

John Copeland lifted either plump hand toward his 
lips. "He could not choose," John Copeland said; 
"madame, he could no more choose but love you than I 
could choose." 

Philippa sighed. Afterward she bade John Copeland 
rinse his gums and then take his prisoner to Hastings. 
He told her the Marquess was dead, slain by the Knight 
of Liddesdale. "That is a pity," the Queen said; and 

112 



more lately: ** There is left alive in England but one 
man to whom I dare entrust the keeping of the King of 
Scots. My barons are sold to him; if I retain Messire 
David by me, one or another lord will engineer his escape 
within the week, and Sire Edward will be vexed. Yet 
listen, John — " She unfolded her plan. 

*'I have long known," he said, when she had done, 
''that in all the world there was no lady more lovable. 
Twenty years I have loved you, my Queen, and yet it is 
?jut to - day I perceive that in all the world there is no 
lady more wise than you." 

Philippa touched his cheek, maternally. "Foolish 
boy ! You tell me the King of Scots has an arrow- wound 
in his nose? I think a bread poultice would be best." 
... So then John Copeland left the tent and presently 
rode away with his company. 

Philippa saw that the Regent had his dinner, and 
afterward mounted her white palfrey and set out for the 
battle-field. There the Earl of Neville, as second in com- 
mand, received her with great courtesy. God had shown 
to her Majesty's servants most singular favor despite 
the calculations of reasonable men — to which, she might 
remember, he had that morning taken the liberty to 
assent — some fifteen thousand Scots were slain. True, 
her gallant general was no longer extant, though this was 
scarcely astounding when one considered the fact that 
he had voluntarily entered the melee quite unarmed. 
A touch of age, perhaps ; Hastings was always an eccen- 
tric man; and in any event, as epilogue, this Neville 
congratulated the Queen that— by blind luck, he was 
forced to concede — her worthy secretary had made a 
prisoner of the Scottish King. Doubtless, Master Cope- 
land was an estimable scribe, and yet — Ah, yes, he quite 
followed her Majesty — beyond doubt, the wardage of a 

113 



QUjtualrg 

king was an honor not lightly to be conferred. Oh yes, 
he understood; her Majesty desired that the office should 
be given some person of rank. And pardie! her Majesty 
was in the right. Eh? said the Earl of Neville. 

Intently gazing into the man's shallow eyes, Philippa 
assented. Master Copeland had acted unwarrantably 
in riding off with his captive. Let him be sought at 
once. She dictated a letter to Neville's secretary, which 
informed John Copeland that he had done what was 
not agreeable in purloining her prisoner without leave. 
Let him sans delay deliver the King to her good friend 
the Earl of Neville. 

To Neville this was satisfactory, since he intended that 
once in his possession David Bruce should escape forth- 
with. The letter, I repeat, suited this smirking gentleman 
in its tiniest syllable, and the single difficulty was to 
convey it to John Copeland, for as to his whereabouts 
neither Neville nor any one else had the least notion. 

This was immaterial, however, for they narrate that 
next day a letter signed with John Copeland 's name was 
found pinned to the front of Neville's tent. I cite a 
passage therefrom : * * I will not give up my royal prisoner 
to a woman or a child, but only to my own lord, Sire 
Edward, for to him I have sworn allegiance, and not to 
any woman. Yet you may tell the Queen she may de- 
pend on my taking excellent care of King David. I have 
poulticed his nose, as she directed." 

Here was a nonplus, not perhaps without its comical 
side. Two great realms had met in battle, and the king 
of one of them had vanished like a soap-bubble. Philippa 
was in a rage — you could see that both by her demeanor 
and by the indignant letters she dictated; true, they 
could not l:>c delivered, since they were all addressed to 
John Copeland. Meanwhile, Scotland was in despair, 

114 



whereas the EngHsh barons were in a frenzy, because, 
however wilHng you may be, you cannot well betray 
your liege-lord to an unlocatable enemy. The circum- 
stances were unique, and they remained unchanged for 
three feverish weeks. 

We will now return to affairs in France, where on the 
day of the Nativity, as night gathered about Calais, John 
Copeland came unheralded to the quarters of King 
Edward, then besieging that city. Master Copeland 
entreated audience, and got it readily enough, since there 
was no man alive whom Sire Edward more cordially 
desired to lay his fingers upon. 

A page brought Master Copeland to the King, a stupen- 
dous person, blond and incredibly big. With him were a 
careful Italian, that Almerigo di Pa via who afterward 
betrayed Sire Edward, and a lean soldier whom Master 
Copeland recognized as John Chandos. These three were 
drawing up an account of the recent victory at Cregi, to 
be forwarded to all mayors and sheriffs in England, with 
a cogent postscript as to the King's incidental and 
immediate need of money. 

Now King Edward sat leaning far back in his chair, a 
hand on either hip, and his eyes narrowing as he regarded 
Master Copeland. Had the Brabanter flinched, the King 
would probably have hanged him within the next ten 
minutes; finding his gaze unwavering, the King was 
pleased. Here was a novelty; most people blinked 
quite genuinely under the scrutiny of those fierce big eyes, 
w^hich were blue and cold and of an astounding lustre, 
gemlike as the March sea. 

The King rose with a jerk and took John Copeland 's 
hand. "Ha!" he grunted, "I welcome the squire who by 
his valor has captured the King of Scots. And now, my 
man, what have you done with Davie?" 
9 115 



Olljttialrg 

John Copeland answered: "Highness, you m^ find 
him at your convenience safely locked in Bamborough 
Castle. Meanwhile, I entreat you, sire, do not take it 
amiss if I did not surrender King David to the orders of 
my lady Queen, for I hold my lands of you, and not of her, 
and my oath is to you, and not to her, unless indeed by 
choice." 

"John," the King sternly replied, "the loyal service you 
have done us is considerable, whereas your excuse for 
kidnapping Davie is a farce. Hey, Almerigo, do you and 
Chandos avoid the chamber ! I have something in private 
with this fellow." When they had gone, the King sat 
down and composedly said, "Now^ tell me the truth, John 
Copeland." 

"Sire," he began, "it is necessary you first understand 
I bear a letter from Madame Philippa — " 

"Then read it," said the King. "Heart of God! have 
I an eternity to waste on you Brabanters!" 

John Copeland read aloud, while the King trifled with 
a pen, half negligent, and in part attendant. 

Read John Copeland: 

"My Dear Lord, — / recommend me to your lordship 
with soul and body and all my poor might, and with all this 
I thank you, as my dear lord, dearest and best beloved of all 
earthly lords I protest to me, and thank you, my dear lord, 
with all this as I say before. Your comfortable letter came 
to me on Saint Gregory's day, and I was never so glad as 
when I heard by your letter that ye were strong enough in 
Ponthieu by the grace of God for to keep you from your 
enemies. Among them I estimate Madame Catherine de 
Salisbury, who would have betrayed you to the Scot. Andy 
dear lord, if it be pleasing to your high lordship that as soon 
as ye may that I might hear of your gracious speed, which 

ii6 



may God Almighty continue and increase, I shall be glad, 
and also if ye do each night chafe your feet with a rag of 
woollen stuff. And, my dear lord, if it like you for to know 
of my fare, John Copeland will acquaint you concerning the 
Bruce his capture, and the syrup he brings for our son Lord 
Edward's cough, and the great malice-workers in these 
shires which would have so des pile f idly wrought to you, 
and of the manner of taking it after each meal. I am lately 
informed that Madame Catherine is now at Stirling with 
Robert Stewart and has lost all her good looks through a fever. 
God is invariably gracious to His servants. Farewell, my 
dear lord, and may the Holy Trinity keep you from your 
adversaries and ever send me comfortable tidings of you. 
Written at York, in the Castle, on Saint Gregory's day last 
past, by your own poor 

*' Philippa. 
''To my true lord.'' 

"H'm!" said the King; "and now give me the entire 
story." 

John Copeland obeyed. I must tell you that early in 
the narrative King Edward arose and, with a sob, strode 
toward a window. "Catherine!" he said. He remained 
motionless what time Master Copeland went on without 
any manifest emotion. When he had ended, King 
Edward said, "And where is Madame de Salisbury now?" 

At this the Brabanter went mad. As a leopard springs 
he leaped upon the King, and grasping him by either 
shoulder, shook that monarch as one punishing a child. 

"Now by the splendor of God — !" King Edward 
began, very terrible in his wrath. He saw that John 
Copeland held a dagger to his breast, and shrugged. 
"Well, my man, you perceive I am defenceless. There- 
fore make an end, you dog." 

117 



Qlllttialrg 

''First you will hear me out," John Copeland said. 

* * It would appear, ' ' the King retorted, ' ' that I have little 
choice." 

At this time John Copeland began: ''Sire, you are the 
greatest monarch our race has known. England is yours, 
France is yours, conquered Scotland lies prostrate at your 
feet. To-day there is no other man in all the world who 
possesses a tithe of your glory; yet twenty years ago 
Madame Philippa first beheld you and loved you, an 
outcast, an exiled, empty - pocketed prince. Twenty 
years ago the love of Madame Philippa, great Count 
William's daughter, got for you the armament where- 
with England was regained. Twenty years ago but 
for Madame Philippa you had died naked in some 
ditch." 

"Go on," the King said presently. 

"And afterward you took a fancy to reign in France. 
You learned then that we Brabanters are a frugal people : 
Madame Philippa was wealthy when she married you, 
and twenty years had but quadrupled her fortune. She 
gave you ever>^ penny of it that you might fit out this 
expedition; now her very crown is in pawn at Ghent. 
In fine, the love of Madame Philippa gave you France as 
lightly as one might bestow a toy upon a child who whined 
for it." 

The King fiercely said, "Go on." 

"Eh, sire, I intend to. You left England undefended 
that you might posture a little in the eyes of Europe. 
And meanwhile a woman preserves England, a woman 
gives you all Scotland as a gift, and in return demands 
nothing — God ha' mercy on us! — save that you nightly 
chafe your feet with a bit of woollen. You hear of it — 
and ask, 'Where is Madame de Salisbury f Here beyond 
doubt is the cock of ^sop's fable," snarled John Copeland, 

ii8 



''who unearthed a gem and grumbled that his diamond 
was not a grain of com." 

"You will be hanged ere dawn," the King replied, and 
yet by this one hand had screened his face. "Meanwhile 
spit out your venom." 

"I say to you, then," John Copeland continued, "that 
to-day you are master of Europe. That but for this 
woman whom for twenty years you have neglected you 
would to-day be mouldering in some pauper's grave. Eh, 
without question, you most magnanimously loved that 
shrew of Salisbury! because you fancied the color of her 
eyes, Sire Edward, and admired the angle between her 
nose and her forehead. Minstrels unborn will sing of this 
great love of yours. Meantime I say to you" — now 
the man's rage was monstrous — "I say to you, go home 
to your too-tedious wife, the source of all your glory! 
sit at her feet! and let her teach you what love is I" He 
flung away the dagger. "There you have the truth. 
Now summon your attendants, my tres beau sire, and 
have me hanged." 

The King gave no movement. "You have been 
bold — " he said at last. 

"But you have been far bolder, sire. For twenty years 
you have dared to flout that love which is God made 
manifest as His main heritage to His children." 

King Edward sat in meditation for a long while. " I 
consider my wife's clerk," he drily said, "to discourse of 
love in somewhat too much the tone of a lover." And 
a flush was his reward. 

But when this Copeland spoke he was as one trans- 
figured. His voice was grave and very tender. 

" As the fish have their life in the waters, so I have and 
always shall have mine in love. Love made me choose 
and dare to emulate a lady, long ago, through whom I 

119 



(Hljtttalry 

live contented, without expecting any other good. Her 
purity is so inestimable that I cannot say whether I 
derive more pride or sorrow from its pre-eminence. She 
does not love me, and she never will. She would con- 
demn me to be hewed in fragments sooner than permit 
her husband's little finger to be injured. Yet she sur- 
passes all others so utterly that I would rather hunger in 
her presence than enjoy from another all which a lover 
can devise." 

Sire Edward stroked the table through this wdiile, with 
an inverted pen. He cleared his throat. He said, half- 
fretfuUy : 

*'Now, by the Face! it is not given every man to love 
precisely in this troubadourish fashion. Even the most 
generous person cannot render to love any more than 
that person happens to possess. I had a vision once: 
The devil sat upon a cathedral spire and white doves 
flew about him. Monks came and told him to begone. 
'Do not the spires show you, O son of darkness,' they 
clamored, 'that the place is holy?' And Satan (in my 
vision) said these spires were capable of various inter- 
pretations. I speak of symbols, John. Yet I also have 
loved, in my own fashion — and, it would seem, I win the 
same reward as you." 

He said more lately: "And so she is at Stirling now? 
with Robert Stewart?" He laughed, not overpleasantly. 
"Eh, yes, it needed a bold person to bring all your tid- 
ings! But you Brabanters are a very thorough-going 
people." 

The King rose and flung back his big head as a lion 
might. "John, the loyal service you have done us and 
our esteem for your valor are so great that they may well 
serve you as an excuse. May shame fall on those who 
bear you any ill-will! You will now return home, and 

1 20 



take your prisoner, the King of Scotland, and deliver him 
ti my wife, to do with as she may elect. You will convey 
to her my entreaty — not my orders, John — that she come 
to me here at Calais. As remuneration for this evening's 
insolence, I assign lands as near your house as you can 
choose them to the value of £s^o a year for you and for 
your heirs." 

You must know that John Copeland fell upon his knees 
before King Edward. "Sire — " he stammered. 

But the King raised him. "Nay," he said, "you are 
the better man. Were there any equity in Fate, John 
Copeland, your lady had loved you, not me. As it is, I 
shall strive to prove not altogether unworthy of my 
fortune. Go, then, John Copeland — go, my squire, and 
bring me back my Queen." 

Presently he heard John Copeland singing without. 
And through that instant was youth returned to Edward 
Plantagenet, and all the scents and shadows and faint 
sounds of Valenciennes on that ancient night when a 
tall girl came to him, running, stumbling in her haste to 
bring him kingship. Now at last he understood the heart 
of Philippa. 

"Let me live!" the King prayed; "O Eternal Father, 
let me live a little w^hile that I may make atonement!" 
And meantime John Copeland sang without and the 
Brabanter's heart was big with joy. 

Sang John Copeland: 

"Long I besought thee, nor vainly, 

Daughter of water and air — 
Charis I Idalia ! Hortensis ! 

Hast thou not heard the prayer, 
When the blood stood still with loving. 

And the blood in me leapt like ivine, 

121 



Qlljttialrg 

And I miirmured thy name, Melccnis? — 
That heard me, {the glory is thine!) 

And let the heart of Atys, 
At last, at last, be mine! 

Falsely they tell of thy dying, 

Thou that art older than Death, 
And never the Horselberg hid thee, 

Whatever the slanderer saith. 
For the stars are as heralds forerunning. 

When laughter and love combine 
At twilight, in thy light, Melccnis — 

That heard me, (the glory is thine!) 
And let the heart of Atys, 

At last, at last, be mine!'' 



THE END OF THE FIFTH NOVEL 



VI 
aH|? g'tnrg of tljr ^atra^ia 

'' Je suis voix au desert criant 
Que chascun soyt rectifiant 
La voye de Sauveur; non suiSy 
Et accomplir je ne le puis/* 



THE SIXTH NOVEL.— ANNE OF BOHEMIA HAS ONE ONLY 
FRIEND, AND BY HIM PLAYS THE FRIEND's PART; AND 
ACHIEVES IN DOING SO THEIR COMMON ANGUISH, AS WELL 
AS THE CONFUSION OF STATECRAFT AND THE POULTICING 
OF A GREAT DISEASE. 




atlfe g»lnra of tl|r BnttnpB 

fN the year of grace 138 1 (Nicolas begins) 
was Dame Anne magnificently fetched 
from remote Bohemia, and at West- 
minster married to Sire Richard, the 
second monarch of that name to reign 
in England. The Queen had presently 
noted a certain priest who went forbiddingly about her 
court, where he was accorded a provisional courtesy, 
and more forbiddingly into many hovels, where day by 
day a pitiful wreckage of humanity both blessed and 
hoodwinked him, as he morosely knew, and adored him, 
as he never knew at all. 

Queen Anne made inquiries. This young cleric was 
amanuensis to the Duke of Gloucester, she was informed, 
and notoriously a by-blow of the Duke's brother, the 
dead Lionel of Clarence. She sent for this Edward 
Maudelain. When he came her first perception was, 
"How wonderful his likeness to the King!" while the 
thought's commentary ran, unacknowledged, *'Ay, as an 
eagle resembles a falcon!" For here, to the observant 
eye, w^as a more zealous person, already passion- was ted, 
and ineffably a more dictatorial and stiff-necked being than 
the lazy and amiable King; also, this Maudelain's face 
and nose were somewhat too long and high; and the 
priest was, in a word, the less comely of the pair by a very 
little, and 1)}^ an infinity the more kinglike. 

125 



Qlljttialrg 

"You are my cousin now, messire," she told him, and 
innocently offered to his lips her own. 

He never moved; but their glances crossed, and for 
that instant she saw the face of a man who has just 
stepped into a quicksand. She trembled, without know- 
ing why. Then he spoke, composedly, and of trivial 
matters. 

Thus began the Queen's acquaintance with Edward 
Maudelain. She was by this time the loneliest woman 
in the island. Her husband granted her a bright and 
fresh perfection of form and color, but desiderated any 
appetizing tang, and lamented, in his phrase, a certain 
kinship to the impeccable loveliness of some female saint 
in a jaunty tapestry; bright as ice in sunshine, just so 
her beauty chilled you, he complained: and moreover, 
this daughter of the Csesars had been fetched into England, 
chiefly, to breed him children, and this she had never 
done. Undoubtedly he had made a bad bargain — he 
was too easy-going, people presumed upon it. His 
barons snatched their cue and esteemed Dame Anne to be 
negligible ; whereas the clergy, finding that she obstinately 
read the Scriptures in the vulgar tongue, under the 
irrelevant plea of not comprehending Latin, denounced her 
from their pulpits as a heretic and as the evil woman 
prophesied by Ezekiel. 

It was the nature of this desolate child to crave affection, 
as a necessity almost, and pitifully she tried to purchase 
it through almsgiving. In the attempt she could have 
found no coadjutor more ready than Edward Maudelain. 
Giving was with these downright two a sort of obsession, 
though always he gave in a half scorn but half concealed ; 
and presently they could have marshalled an army of 
adherents, all in rags, who would cheerfully have been 
hacked to pieces for either of the twain, and have praised 

126 



God at the final gasp for the privilege. It was perhaps 
the tragedy of the man's life that he never suspected this. 

Now in and about the Queen's unfrequented rooms 
the lonely woman and the priest met daily to discuss now 
this or that comminuted point of theology, or now (to 
cite a single instance) Gammer Tudway's obstinate 
sciatica. Considerate persons found something of the 
pathetic in their preoccupation by these trifles while, 
so clamantly, the dissension between the young King 
and his uncles gathered to a head : the air was thick with 
portents; and was this, then, an appropriate time, the 
judicious demanded of high Heaven, for the Queen of 
fearful England to concern herself about a peasant's 
toothache ? 

Long afterward was Edward Maudelain to remember 
this brief and tranquil period of his life, and to wonder 
over the man that he had been through this short while. 
Embittered and suspicious she had found him, noted for 
the carping tongue he lacked both power and inclination 
to bridle; and she had, against his nature, made Maude- 
lain see that every person is at bottom lovable, and all 
vices but the stains of a traveller midway in a dusty 
journey; and had led the priest no longer to do good for 
his soul's health, but simply for his fellow's benefit. 

And in place of that monstrous passion which had at 
first view of her possessed the priest, now, like a sheltered 
taper, glowed an adoration w^hich yearned, in mockery 
of common-sense, to suffer somehow for this beautiful 
and gracious comrade; though very often a sudden pity 
for her loneliness and the knowledge that she dared trust 
no one save himself would throttle him like two assassins 
and move the hot-blooded young man to an exquisite 
agony of self-contempt and exultation. 

Now Maudelain made excellent songs, it was a matter 

137 



Qllfttialrg 

of common report. Yet but once in their close friend- 
ship had the Queen commanded him to make a song for 
her. This had been at Dover, about vespers, in the 
starved and tiny garden overlooking tne English Channel, 
upon which her apartments faced; and the priest had 
fingered his lute for an appreciable while before he sang, 
a thought more harshly than was his custom. 
Sang Maudelain: 

''Ave Maria! now cry we so 
That see night wake and daylight go. 

''Mother and Maid, in nothing incomplete , 
This night that gathers is more light and fleet 
Than twilight trod alway with stumbling feet, 
Agentes tmo animo. 

"Ever we touch the prize we dare not take! 
Ever we know that thirst we dare not slake! 
And ever to a dreamed-of goal we make— 
Est cceli in palatio! 

"Yet long the road, and very frail are we 
That may not lightly curb mortality, 
Nor lightly tread together silently, 
Et carmen unnm facio: 

"Mater, or a filium, 
Ut post hoc exiliiim 
Nobis donet gaudium 
Beatorum omnium ! ' ' 

Dame Anne had risen. She said nothing. She stayed 
in this posture for a lengthy while, reeling, one hand 

128 



®I|0 ^tflrg af tlt^ ^nttupB 

yet clasping either breast. More lately she laughed, and 
began to speak of Long Simon's recent fever. Was there 
no method of establishing him in another cottage? No, 
the priest said, the villiens, like the cattle, were by ordinary 
deeded with the land. 

One day, about the hour of prime, in that season of 
the year when fields smell of young grass, the Duke of 
Gloucester sent for Edward Maudelain. The court was 
then at Windsor. The priest came quickly to his patron. 
He found the Duke in company with Edmund of York 
and bland Harry of Derby, John of Gaunt's oldest son. 
Each was a proud and handsome man. To-day Glouces- 
ter was gnawing at his finger nails, big York seemed 
half -asleep, and the Earl of Derby patiently to await 
something as yet ineffably remote. 

**Sit down!" snarled Gloucester. His lean and evil 
countenance was that of a tired devil. The priest 
obeyed, wondering so high an honor should be accorded 
him in the view of three gieat noblemen. Then Glouces- 
ter said, in his sharp way: ''Edward, you know, as 
England knows, the King's intention toward us three 
and our adherents. It has come to our demolishment or 
his. I confess a preference in the matter. I have con- 
sulted with the Pope concerning the advisability of taking 
the crown into my own hands. Edmund here does not 
want it, and John is already achieving one in Spain. 
Eh, in imagination I was already King of England, and 
I had dreamed — Well ! to-day the prosaic courier arrived. 
Urban — the Neapolitan swine! — dares give me no assist- 
ance. It is decreed I shall never reign in these islands. 
And I had dreamed — Meanwhile, de Vere and de la Pole 
are at the King day and night, urging revolt. Within 
the week the three heads of us will embellish Temple Bar. 
You, of course, they will only hang." 

129 



QUjtualrg 

"We must avoid England, then, my noble patron," 
the priest considered. 

Angrily the Duke struck a clenched fist upon the table. 
"B}^ the Cross! we remain in England, you and I and all 
of us. Others avoid. The Pope and the Emperor will 
have none of me. They plead for the Black Prince's 
heir, for the legitimate heir. Dompnedex ! they shall have 
him!" 

Maudelain recoiled, for he thought this twitching man 
insane. 

"Besides, the King intends to take from me my fief 
at Sudbury," said the Duke of York, "in order he may 
give it to de Vere. That is both absurd and monstrous 
and abominable." 

Openly Gloucester sneered. "Listen!" he rapped out 
toward Maudelain; "when they were drawing up the 
Great Peace at Bretigny, it happened, as is notorious, that 
the Black Prince, my brother, wooed in this town the 
Demoiselle x^lixe Riczi, whom in the outcome he abducted. 
It is not as generally known, however, that, finding this 
sister of the Vicomte de Montbrison a girl of obdurate 
virtue, he had prefaced the action by marriage." 

"And what have I to do with all this?" said Edward 
Maudelain. 

Gloucester retorted: "More than you think. For she 
was conveyed to Chertse3% here in England, where at the 
year's end she died in childbirth. A little before this time 
had Sir Thomas Holland seen his last day — the husband 
of that Joane of Kent whom throughout life my brother 
loved most marvellously. The disposition of the late 
Out^en-Mother is tolerably well-known. I make no com- 
ment save that to her moulding my brother was as so 
much wax. In fine, the two lovers were presently 
married, and their son reigns to-day in England. The 

130 



abandoned son of Alixe Riczi was reared by the Cister- 
cians at Chertsey, where some years ago I found you — 
sire." 

He spoke with a stifled voice, and wrenching forth each 
sentence; and now with a stiff forefinger flipped a paper 
across the table. ''In extremis my brother did far more 
than confess. He signed — your Grace," said Gloucester. 
The Duke on a sudden flung out his hands, like a wizard 
whose necromancy fails, and the palms were bloodied 
where his nails had cut the flesh. 

"Moreover, my daughter was bom at Sudbury," said 
the Duke of York. 

And of Maudelain's face I cannot tell you. He made 
pretence to read the paper carefully, but ever his eyes 
roved, and he knew that he stood among wolves. The 
room was oddly shaped, with eight equal sides; the 
ceiling was of a light and brilliant blue, powdered with 
many golden stars, and the walls were hung with smart 
tapestries which commemorated the exploits of Theseus. 
"King," this Maudelain said aloud, "of France and Eng- 
land, and Lord of Ireland, and Duke of Aquitaine! I 
perceive that Heaven loves a jest." He wheeled upon 
Gloucester and spoke with singular irrelevance: "And the 
titular Queen?" 

Again the Duke shrugged. "I had not thought of the 
dumb wench. We have many convents." 

And now Maudelain twisted the paper between his long, 
wet fingers and appeared to meditate. 

"It would be advisable, your Grace," observed the 
Earl of Derby, suavely, and breaking his silence for the 
first time, "that yourself should w^ed Dame Anne, once 
the Apostolic See has granted the necessary dispensation. 
Treading too close upon the impendent death of our 
nominal lord the so-called King, the foreign war perhaps 
lo 131 



(Eifttialrg 

necessitated by her exile would be highly inconven- 
ient." 

Then these three princes rose and knelt before the 
priest; in long bright garments they were clad, and they 
glittered with gold and many jewels, what while he 
standing among them shuddered in his sombre robe. 
''Hail, King of England!" cried these three. 

"Hail, ye that are my kinsmen!" he answered; "hail, 
ye that spring of an accursed race, as I! And woe to 
England for that fearful hour wherein Foulques the 
Querulous held traffic with a devil and on her begot the 
first of us Plantagenets ! Of ice and of lust and of hell- 
fire are all we sprung ; old records attest it ; and fickle and 
cold and ravenous and without shame are we Plantagenets 
until the end. Of your brother's dishonor ye make 
merchandise to-day, and to-day fratricide whispers me, 
and leers, and. Heaven help me! I attend. O God of 
Gods! wilt Thou dare bid a man live stainless, having 
aforetime filled his veins w4th such a venom? Then 
haro, will I cry from Thy deepest hell . . . Nay, now 
let Lucifer rejoice for that his descendants know of what 
wood to make a crutch ! You are very wise, my kinsmen. 
Take your measures, messieurs who are my kinsmen! 
Though were I any other than a Plantagenet, with what 
expedition would I now kill you that recognize the 
strength to do it! then would I slay you! without any 
animosity, would I slay you then, and just as I would 
kill as many splendid snakes!" 

He went away, laughing horribly. Gloucester drummed 
upon the table, his brows contracted. But the lean Duke 
said nothing; big York seemed to drowse; and Henry 
of Derby smiled as he sounded a gong for that scribe 
who would draw up the necessary letters. The Earl's 
time was not yet come, but it was nearing. 

1.^2 




Painting by Howard Pyle 



HAIL YE THAT ARE MY KINSMEN!' 



In the antechamber the priest encountered two men- 
at-arms dragging a dead body from the castle. The 
Duke of Kent, Maudelain was informed, had taken a 
fancy to a peasant girl, and in remonstrance her mis- 
guided father had actually tugged at his Grace's sleeve. 

Maudelain went first into the park of Windsor, where 
he walked for a long while alone. It was a fine day in the 
middle spring ; and now he seemed to understand for the 
first time how fair his England was. For entire England 
was his splendid fief, held in vassalage to God and to 
no man alive, his heart now sang; allw^hither his empire 
spread, opulent in grain and metal and every revenue of 
the earth, and in stalw^art men (his chattels), and in strong 
orderly cities, where the windows would be adorned 
with scarlet hangings, and women (with golden hair and 
red lax lips) would presently admire as King Edward 
rode slowly by at the head of a resplendent retinue. 
And always the King would bow, graciously and without 
haste, to his shouting people. . . . He laughed to find 
himself already at rehearsal of the gesture. 

It was strange, though, that in this glorious fief of his 
so many persons should, as yet, live day by day as cattle 
live, suspicious of all other moving things (with reason), 
and roused from their incurious and filthy apathy only 
when some glittering baron, like a resistless eagle, swept 
uncomfortably near on some by-errand of the more 
bright and windy upper- world. East and north they had 
gone yearly, for so many centuries, these dumb peasants, 
like herded sheep, so that in the outcome their carcasses 
might manure the soil of France yonder or of more barren 
Scotland. Give these serfs a king, now, who (being 
absolute), might dare to deal in perfect equity with rich 
and poor, who with his advent would bring Peace into 
England as his bride, as Trygaeus did very anciently in 

^33 



(Hlftiialrg 

Athens — "And then," the priest paraphrased, "may 
England recover all the blessings she has lost, and every- 
where the glitter of active steel will cease." For every- 
where men would crack a rustic jest or two, unhurriedly. 
The vivid fields would blacken under their sluggish 
ploughs, and they would find that with practice it was 
almost as easy to chuckle as it was to cringe. 

Meanwhile on every side the nobles tyrannized in their 
degree, well clothed and nourished, but at bottom equal- 
ly comfortless in condition. As illuminate by lightning 
Maudelain saw the many factions of his barons squabbling 
for gross pleasures, like wolves over a corpse, and blindly 
dealing death to one another to secure at least one more 
delicious gulp before that inevitable mangling by the 
teeth of some burlier colleague. The complete misery of 
England showed before him like a winter landscape. 
The thing was questionless. He must tread hencefor- 
ward without fear among frenzied beasts, and to their 
ultimate welfare. On a sudden Maudelain knew himself 
to be strong and admirable throughout, and hesitancy 
ebbed. 

True, Richard, poor fool, must die. Squarely the priest 
faced that stark and hideous circumstance; to spare 
Richard \tas beyond his power, and the boy was his 
brother; yes, this oncoming king would be in effect a 
fratricide, and after death irrevocably damned. To 
burn, and eternally to bum, and, worst of all, to know 
that the torment was eternal! ay, it would be hard; but, 
at the cost of one ignoble life and one inconsiderable soul, 
to win so many men to manhood bedazzled his every 
faculty, in anticipation of the exploit. 

The tale tells that Maudelain went toward the little 
garden he knew so well which adjoined Dame Anne's 
apartments. He found the Queen there, alone, as nowa- 

134 



days she was for the most part, and he paused to wonder 
at her bright and singular beauty. How vaguely odd it 
was, he reflected, too, how alien in its effect to that of 
any other woman in sturdy England, and how associable 
it was, somehow, with every wild and gracious denizen 
of the woods which blossomed yonder. 

In this place the world was all sunlight, temperate 
but undiluted. They had met in a wide, unshaded plot 
of grass, too short to ripple, which everywhere glowed 
steadily, like a gem. Right and left birds sang as in a 
contest. The sky was cloudless, a faint and radiant 
blue throughout, save where the sun stayed as yet in 
the zenith, so that the Queen's brows cast honey-colored 
shadows upon either cheek. The priest was greatly 
troubled by the proud and heatless brilliancies, the 
shrill joys, of every object within the radius of his senses. 

She was splendidly clothed, in a kirtle of very bright 
green, tinted like the verdancy of young ferns in sun- 
light, and over all a gown of white, cut open on either 
side as far as the hips. This garment w^as embroidered 
with golden leopards and trimmed with ermine. About 
her yellow hair was a chaplet of gold, wherein emeralds 
glowed. Her blue eyes were as large and bright and 
changeable (he thought) as two oceans in midsummer; 
and Maudelain stood motionless and seemed to himself 
but to revere, as the Earl Ixion did, some bright and never 
stable wisp of cloud, while somehow all elation departed 
from him as water does from a wetted sponge compressed. 
He laughed discordantly ; but within the moment his sun- 
lit face was still and glorious, like that of an image. 

**Wait — ! O my only friend — !" said Maudelain. 
Then in a level voice he told her all, unhurriedly and 
without any sensible emotion. 

She had breathed once, with an aweful inhalation. She 

135 



(Elfitialrg 

had screened her countenance from his gaze what while 
you might have counted fifty. More lately the lithe 
body of Dame Anne was alert, as one suddenly aroused 
from dreaming. ''This means more war, for de Vere 
and Tress ilian and de la Pole and Bramber and others of 
the barons know that the King's fall signifies their ruin. 
Many thousands die to-morrow." 

He answered, "It means a brief and cruel w^ar." 

"In that war the nobles will ride abroad with banners 
and gay surcoats, and kill and ravish in the pauses of 
their songs; while daily in that war the naked peasants 
will kill the one the other, without knowing w^hy." 

His thought had forerun hers. "Many would die, but 
in the end I would be King, and the general happiness 
would rest at my disposal. The adventure of this world 
is wonderful, and it goes otherwise than under the strict 
tutelage of reason." 

"Not yours, but Gloucester's and his barons'. Friend, 
they would set you on the throne to be their puppet and 
to move only as they pulled the strings. Thwart them 
and they will fling you. aside, as the barons have dealt 
aforetime with every king that dared oppose them. 
Nay, they desire to live pleasantly, to have fish o' Fridays, 
and w^hite bread and the finest wine the whole year 
through, and there is not enough for all, say they. Can 
you alone contend against them? and conquer them? 
then only do I bid you reign." 

The sun had grown too bright, too merciless, but as 
always she drew the truth from him, even to his agony. 
"I cannot. I would not endure a fortnight. Heaven 
help us, nor you nor I nor any one may transform of any 
personal force this bitter time, this piercing, cruel day of 
frost and sun. Charity and Truth are excommunicate, 
and the King is only an adorned and fearful person who 

136 



leads wolves toward their quarry, lest, lacking it, they 
turn and devour him. Everywhere the powerful labor to 
put one another out of worship, and each to stand the 
higher with the other's corpse as his pedestal; and 
always Lechery and Hatred sway these proud and in- 
considerate fools as winds blow at will the gay leaves of 
autumn. We but fight with gaudy shadows, we but 
aspire to overpass a mountain of unstable sand! We 
two alone of all the scuffling world! Oh, it is horrible, 
and I think that Satan plans the jest! We dream a 
while of refashioning this bleak universe, and we know 
that we alone can do it! and we are as demigods, you 
and I, in those gallant dreams! and at the end we can 
but poultice some dirty rascal!" 

The Queen answered sadly: "Once did God tread the 
tangible world, for a very little while, and, look you, to 
what trivial matters He devoted that brief space! Only 
to chat with fishermen, and to reason with lost women, 
and habitually to consort with rascals, till at last He 
might die between two cutpurses, ignominiously ! Were 
the considerate persons of His day moved at all by the 
death of this fanatic? I bid you now enumerate 
through what long halls did the sleek heralds proclaim 
His crucifixion! and the armament of great-jowled em- 
perors that were distraught by it?" 

He answered : " It is true. Of anise even and of cumin 
the Master estimates His tithe — " Maudelain broke 
off with a yapping laugh. '*Puf ! He is wiser than we. 
I am King of England. It is my heritage." 

"It means war. Many will die, many thousands will 
die, and to no betterment of affairs." 

"I am King of England. I am Heaven's satrap here, 
and answerable to Heaven alone. It is my heritage. ' ' And 
now his large and cruel eyes flamed as he regarded her, 

137 



OII|ttiaIrg 

And visibly beneath their glare the woman changed. 
"My friend, must I not love you any longer ? You would 
be content with happiness ? I am jealous of that happi- 
ness! for you are the one friend that I have had, and so 
dear to me — Look you!" she said, with a light, wistful 
laugh, ''there have been times when I was afraid of every- 
thing you touched, and I hated everything you looked at. 
I would not have you stained ; I desired but to pass my 
whole life between the four walls of some dingy and 
eternal gaol, forever alone with you, lest you become as 
other men. I would in that period have been the very 
bread you eat, the least perfume which delights you, 
the clod you touch in crushing it, and often I have loathed 
some pleasure I derived from life because I might not 
transfer it to you undiminished. For I wanted somehow 
to make you happy to my own anguish. ... It was wick- 
ed, I suppose, for the imagining of it made me happy, 
too." 

Throughout she spoke as simply as a child. 

And beside him Maudelain's hands had fallen like 
so much lead, and remembering his own nature, he 
longed for annihilation only, before she had appraised his 
vileness. In consequence he said: 

"With reason Augustine crieth out against the lust 
of the eyes. 'For pleasure seeketh objects beautiful, 
melodious, fragrant, savor^^ and soft; but this disease 
those contrary as well, not for the sake of suffering 
annoyance, but out of the lust of making trial of them!* 
Ah! ah! too curiously I planned my own damnation, too 
presumptuously I had esteemed my soul a worthy scape- 
goat, and I had gilded my enormity with many lies. 
Yet indeed, indeed, I had believed brave things, I had 
planned a not ignoble bargain — ! Ey, say, is it not 
laughable, madame? — as my birthright Heaven accords 

1.38 



me a penny, and with that only penny I must anon be 
seeking to bribe Heaven." 

Presently he said: *'Yet are we indeed God's satraps, 
as but now I cried in my vainglory, and we hold within 
our palms the destiny of many peoples. Depardieux! 
He is wiser than we are, it may be! And as always 
Satan offers no unhandsome bribes — bribes that are 
tangible and sure." 

They stood like effigies, lit by the broad, unsparing 
splendor of the morning, but again their kindling eyes had 
met, and again the man shuddered visibly, convulsed 
by a monstrous and repulsive joy. ''Decide! oh, decide 
very quickly, my only friend!" he wailed, "for through- 
out I am all filth!" 

Closer she drew to him and without hesitancy laid one 
hand on either shoulder. "O my only friend!" she 
breathed, with red lax lips which were very near to his, 
** throughout so many years I have ranked your friend- 
ship as the chief of all my honors! and I pray God with 
an entire heart that I may die so soon as I have done 
what I must do to-day!" 

Almost did Edward Maudelain smile, but now his 
stiffening mouth could not complete the brave attempt. 
*'God save King Richard!" said the priest. "For by 
the cowardice and greed and ignorance of little men were 
Salomon himself confounded, and by them is Hercules 
lightly unhorsed. Were I Leviathan, whose bones were 
long ago picked clean by pismires, I could perform 
nothing. Therefore do you pronounce my doom." 

"O King," then said Dame Anne, "I bid you go for- 
ever from the court and live forever a landless man, and 
friendless, and without even name. I bid you dare to 
cast aside all happiness and wealth and comfort and 
each common tie that even a pickpocket may boast, like 

139 



OUjtnalrg 

tawdry and unworthy garments. In fine, I bid you dare 
be King and absolute, yet not of England — but of your 
own being, alike in motion and in thought and even in 
wish. This doom I dare adjudge and to pronounce, 
since we are royal and God's satraps, you and I." 

Twice or thrice his dry lips moved before he spoke. 
He was aware of innumerable birds that carolled with a 
piercing and intolerable sweetness. "O Queen!" he 
hoarsely said, "O fellow satrap! Heaven has many 
fiefs. A fair province is wasted and accords no revenue. 
Therein waste beauty and a shrewd wit and an illimit- 
able charity which of their pride go in fetters and achieve 
no increase. To-day the young King junkets with his 
flatterers, and but rarely thinks of England. You have 
that beauty in desire of which many and many a man 
would blithely enter hell, and the mere sight of which 
may well cause a man's voice to tremble as my voice 
trembles now, and in desire of which — But I tread afield ! 
Of that beauty you have made no profit. O daughter 
of the Caesars, I bid you now gird either loin for an unlovely 
traffic. Old Legion must be fought with fire. True 
that the age is sick, that we may not cure, we can but 
salve the hurt — " Now had his hand torn open his 
sombre gown, and the man's bared breast shone in the 
sunlight, and everywhere heaved on it sleek and glittering 
beads of sweat. Twice he cried the Queen's name aloud, 
without prefix. In a while he said: "I bid you weave 
incessantly such snares of brain and body as may lure 
King Richard to be swayed by you, until against his will 
you daily guide this shallow-hearted fool to some com- 
mendable action. I bid you live as other folk do here- 
abouts. Coax! beg! cheat! wheedle! lie!" he barked 
like a teased dog, "till you achieve in part the task which 
is denied me. This doom I dare adjudge and to pro- 

140 



®I|0 0t0rg of tlj^ BnttnpB 

nounce, since we are royal and God's satraps, you 
and I." 

She answered with a tiny, wordless sound. He 
prayed for even horror as he appraised his handiwork. 
But presentl3^ "I take my doom," the Queen proudly 
said. "I shall be lonely now, my only friend, and yet — 
it does not matter," the Queen said, with a little shiver. 
"No, nothing will ever greatly matter now, I think." 

Her eyes had filled with tears; she was unhappy, and as 
always this knowledge roused in Maudelain a sort of 
frenzied pity and a hatred, quite illogical, of all other 
things existent. She was unhappy, that only he realized; 
and half way he had strained a soft and groping hand 
toward his lips when he relinquished it. **Nay, not even 
that," said Edward Maudelain, very proudly, too, and now 
at last he smiled; ** since we are God's satraps, you and I." 

Afterward he stood thus for an appreciable silence, 
with ravenous eyes, motionless save that behind his back 
his fingers were bruising one another. Everywhere 
was this or that bright color and an incessant melody. 
It was unbearable. Then it was over; the ordered 
progress of all happenings was apparent, simple, and 
natural; and contentment came into his heart like a 
flight of linnets over level fields at dawn. He left her, 
and as he went he sang. 

Sang Maudelain: 

*' Christ save us all, as well He can, 
A solis ortiis car dine! 
For He is hath God and man, 

Qui naius est de virgine, 
And we but part of His wide plan 
That sing, and heartily sing we, 
'Gloria Tibi, DomineT 
141 



QII|ttialrg 

''Between a heifer and an ass 
Enixa est puerpera; 
In ragged woollen clad He was 

Qui re gnat super cethera, 
And patiently may we then pass 
That sing, and heartily sing we, 
'Gloria Tibi, Dominel"' 

The Queen shivered in the glad sunlight. '*I am, it 
must be, pitiably weak," she said at last, ** because I 
cannot sing as he does. And, since I am not very wise, 
were he to return even now — But he will not return. 
He will never return," the Queen repeated, carefully, 
and over and over again. *'It is strange I cannot com- 
prehend that he will never return! Ah, Mother of God!" 
she cried, with a steadier voice, ** grant that I may weep! 
nay, of thy infinite mercy let me presently find the heart 
to weep!" And about the Queen of England many birds 
sang joyously. 

Next day the English barons held a council, and in the 
midst of it King Richard demanded to be told his age. 

"Your Grace is in your twenty-second year," said the 
uneasy Gloucester, and now with reason troubled, since 
he had been seeking all night long for the evanished 
Maudelain. 

**Then I have been under tutors and governors longer 
than any other ward in my dominion. My lords, I thank 
you for your past services, but I need them no more." 
They had no check handy, and Gloucester in particular 
foreread his death-warrant, but of necessity he shouted 
with the others, "Hail, King of England!" 

That afternoon the King's assumption of all royal 
responsibility was commemorated by a tournament, over 
which Dame Anne presided. Sixty of her ladies led as 

142 



many knights by silver chains into the tilting-grounds 
at Smithfield, and it was remarked that the Queen ap- 
peared unusually mirthful. The King was in high good 
humor, already a pattern of conjugal devotion; and the 
royal pair retired at dusk to the Bishop of London's 
palace at Saint Paul's, where was held a merry banquet, 
with dancing both before and after supper. 



THE END OF THE SIXTH NOVEL 



VII 
2IIfe S>t0rg of tlft i^^rttagf 

''Pour vous je suis en prison mise, 
En ceste chambre a voulte grise, 
Et traineray ma triste vie 
Sans que jamais mon cueur varie, 
Car toujours seray vostre amye.'' 



THE SEVENTH NOVEL. — ISABEL OF VALOIS, BEING FOR- 
SAKEN BY ALL OTHERS, IS BEFRIENDED BY A PRIEST, 
WHO, IN CHIEF THROUGH A CHILD's INNOCENCE, CON- 
TRIVES AND EXECUTES A LAUDABLE IMPOSTURE, AND WINS 
TO DEATH THEREBY. 



2[I|0 g^tnrg 0f tlfi? il^ritagp 




N the year of grace 1399 (Nicolas begins) 
dwelt in a hut near Caer Dathyl in Ar- 
von,as he had done for some five years, 
a gaunt hermit, notoriously consecrate, 
whom neighboring Welshmen revered as 
the Blessed Evrawc. There had been 
a time when people called him Edward Maudelain, but 
this period he dared not often remember. 

For though in macerations of the flesh, in fasting, and 
in hour-long prayers he spent his days, this holy man 
was much troubled by devils. He got little rest because 
of them. Sometimes would come into his hut Belphegor 
in the likeness of a butler, and whisper, **Sire, had you 
been King, as was your right, you had drunk to-day not 
water but the wines of Spain and Hungary." Or Asmo- 
deus saying, **Sire, had you been King, as was your 
right, you had lain now on cushions of silk." 

One day in early spring came a more cunning devil, 
named Bembo, in the likeness of a fair woman with yellow 
hair and large blue eyes. She wore a massive crown 
which seemed too heavy for her frailness to sustain. Soft 
tranquil eyes had lifted from her book. **You are my 
cousin now, messire," this phantom had appeared to say. 
That was the worst, and Maudelain began to fear he 
was a little mad because even this he had resisted with 
many aves. 

XX 147 



There came also to his hut, through a sullen snow- 
storm, upon the afternoon of All Soul's day, a horseman 
in a long cloak of black. He tethered his black horse 
without and strode softly through the door, and upon his 
breast and shoulders the snow was white as the bleached 
bones of those women that died in Merlin's youth. 

"Greetings in God's name, Messire Edward Maude- 
lain," the stranger said. 

Since the new-comer spoke intrepidly of holy things a 
cheerier Maudelain knew that this at least was no demon. 
''Greetings!" he answered. ''But I am Evrawc. You 
name a man long dead." 

"But it is from a certain Bohemian woman I come. 
What matter, then, if the dead receive me?" And thus 
speaking, the stranger dropped his cloak. 

In flame-colored satin he was clad, which shimmered 
with each movement like a high flame, and his counte- 
nance had throughout the color and the glow of amber. 
His eyes were dark and very tender, and the tears some- 
how had come to Maudelain's eyes because of a sudden 
and great love for this tall stranger. "Eh, from the 
dead to the dead I travel, as ever, with a message and a 
token. My message runs, Time is, O fellow satrap! 
and my token is this." 

And in this packet, wrapped with white parchment 
and tied with a golden cord, was only a lock of hair. It 
lay like a little yellow serpent in Maudelain's palm. 
"And yet five years ago," he mused, "this hair was 
turned to dust. God keep us all ! " Then he saw the tall 
lean emissary puffed out like a candle-flame; and upon 
the floor he saw the huddled cloak waver and spread 
like ink, and the white parchment slowly dwindle, as 
snow melts under the open sun. But in his hand re- 
mained the lock of yellow hair. 

148 




Patnitng by Howard Pyle 



"IN THE LIKENESS OF A FAIR WOMAN 



"O my only friend," said Maudelain, "I may not 
comprehend, but I know that by no unhallowed art 
have you won back to me." Hair b^^^ hair he scattered 
what he held upon the floor. ' ' Time is I and I have not 
need of any token wherewith to spur my memory." He 
prized up a corner of the hearthstone, took out a small 
leather bag, and that day purchased a horse and a sword. 

At dawn the Blessed Evrawc rode eastward in this 
novel guise. It was two weeks later when he came to 
Sunninghill; and it happened that the same morning 
the Earl of Salisbury, who had excellent reason to 
consider . . . 

Follows a lacuna of fourteen pages. Maudelain' s success- 
ful imposture of Richard the Second, so strangely favored 
by their physical resemblance, and the subsequent fiasco at 
Circencester , are now, however, tolerably notorious. It would 
seem evident, from the Argument of the story in hand, that 
Nicolas attributes a large part of this mysterious business 
to the co-operancy of Isabel of Valois, King Richard's 
infant wife. And {should one have a taste for the deduc- 
tive) the foregoing mention of Bembo, when compared with 
"The Story of the Scabbard," would certainly hint that 
Owain Glyndwyr had a finger in the affair. 

It is impossible to divine by what method, according to 
Nicolas, this Edward Maudelain was eventually substituted 
for his younger brother. Nicolas, if you are to believe his 
"Epilogue," had the best of reasons for knowing that the 
prisoner locked up in Pontefract Castle in the February of 
1400 was not Richard Plantagenet: and this contention is 
strikingly attested, also, by the remaining fragment of this 
same "Story of the Heritage." 

, . . and eight men-at-arms followed him, 

149 



Qlljttialrg 

Quickly Maudelain rose from the table, pushing his 
tall chair aside, and in the act one fellow closed the door 
securely. "Nay, eat your fill, Sire Richard," said Piers 
Exton, "since you will not ever eat again." 

" Is it so ? " the trapped man answered quietly. "Then 
indeed you come in a good hour." Once only he smote 
upon his breast. ' * Mea culpa ! O Eternal Father, do Thou 
shrive me very quickly of all those sins I have committed, 
both in thought and deed, for now the time is very short." 

And Exton spat upon the dusty floor. "Foh, they 
had told me I would find a king here. I discover only a 
cat that whines." 

"Then 'ware his claws!" As a viper leaps Maudelain 
sprang upon the nearest fellow and wrested away his 
halberd. "Then 'ware his claws, my men! For I come 
of an accursed race. And now let some of you lament 
that fearful hour wherein Foulques the Querulous held 
traffic w4th a demon and on her begot the first of us 
Plantagenets ! For of ice and of lust and of hell-fire 
are all w^e sprung; old records attest it; and fickle and 
cold and ravenous and without fear are all we Plantag- 
enets until the end. Ay, until the end! O God of 
Gods!" this Maudelain cried, with a great voice, "wilt 
Thou dare bid a man die patiently, having aforetime 
filled his veins with such a venom ! Nay, I lack the grace 
to die as all Thy saints, without one carnal blow struck 
in my own defence. I lack the grace, my Father, for 
even at the last the devil's blood You gave me is not 
quelled. I dare atone for that old sin done by my father 
in the flesh, but yet I must atone as a Plantagenet ! " 

Then it was he and not they who pressed to the attack. 
Their meeting was a bloody business, for in that dark 
and crowded room Maudelain raged among his nine 
antagonists as an angered lion among w^olves. 

150 



(Ulf? ^t0rg of ttf^ l^^rttag^ 

They struck at random and cursed shrilly, for they 
were now half-afraid of this prey they had entrapped; 
so that presently he was all hacked and bleeding, though 
as yet he had no mortal wound. Four of these men he 
had killed by this, and Piers Exton also lay at his feet. 

Then the other four drew back a little. ''Are ye tired 
so soon?" said Maudelain, and he laughed terribly. 
''What, even you! Why, look ye, my bold veterans, 
I never killed before to-day, and I am not breathed 
as yet." 

Thus he boasted, exultant in his strength. But the 
other men saw that behind him Piers Exton had crawled 
into the chair from which (they thought) King Richard 
had just risen, and stood erect upon the cushions of it. 
They saw this Exton strike the King with his pole-axe, 
from behind, and once only, and they knew no more was 
needed. 

' ' By God ! " said one of them in the ensuing stillness, and 
it was he who bled the most, "that was a felon's blow." 

But the dying man who lay before them made as 
though to smile. ' ' I charge you all to witness," he faintly 
said, "how willingly I render to Caesar's daughter that 
which was ever hers." 

Then Exton fretted, as with a little trace of shame: 
"Who would have thought the rascal had remembered 
that first wife of his so long? Caesar's daughter, saith 
he! and dares in extremis to pervert Holy Scripture 
like any Wy cliff ite! Well, he is as dead as that first 
Cassar now, and our gracious King, I think, will sleep the 
better for it. And yet — God only knows ! for they are an 
odd race, even as he said — these Plantagenets." 



THE END OF THE SEVENTH NOVEL 



VIII 

' Ainsi il avoit trouve sa mie 
Si belle qu'on put souhaiter. 
N' avoit cure d'ailleurs plaider, 
Fors qu'avec hii manoir et estre. 
Bien est Amour puissant et maistre.'" 



THE EIGHTH NOVEL. — BRANWEN OF WALES GETS A KING S 
LOVE UNWITTINGLY, AND IN ALL INNOCENCE CONVINCES 
HIM OF THE LITTLENESS OF HIS KINGDOM; SO THAT HE 
BESIEGES AND IN DUE COURSE TRIUMPHANTLY OCCUPIES 
ANOTHER REALM AS YET UNMAPPED. 




'N the year of grace 1400 (Nicolas begins) 
King Richard, the second monarch of 
that name to rule in England, wrenched 
his own existence, and nothing more, 
from the close wiles of Bolingbroke. 
The circumstances have been recorded 
otherwhere. All persons, saving only Owain Glyndwyr 
and Henry of Lancaster, believed King Richard dead 
at that period when Richard attended his own funeral, 
as a proceeding taking to the fancy, and, among many 
others, saw the body of Edward Maudelain interred 
with every regal ceremony in the chapel at Langley 
Bower. Then alone Sire Richard crossed the seas, and 
at thirty-three set out to inspect a transformed and 
gratefully untrammelling world wherein not a foot of 
land belonged to him. 

Holland was the surname he assumed, the name of 
his half-brothers; and to detail his Asian wanderings 
were both tedious and unprofitable. But at the end of 
each four months would come to him a certain messenger 
from Glyndwyr, whom Richard supposed to be the devil 
Bembo, who notoriously ran every day around the world 
upon the Welshman's business. It was in the Isle of 
Taprobane, where the pismires are as great as hounds, 
and mine and store the gold the inhabitants afterward 
rob them of through a very cunning device, that this 

155 



Ollfttialrg 

emissary brought the letter which read simply, "Now is 
England fit pasture for the White Hart." Presently 
was Richard Holland in Wales, and then he rode to 
Sycharth. 

There, after salutation, Glyndwyr gave an account of 
his long stewardship. It was a puzzling record of obscure 
and tireless machinations with which we have no im- 
mediate concern: in brief, the very barons who had 
ousted King Log had been the first to find King Stork 
intolerable; and Northumberland, Worcester, Douglas, 
Mortimer, and so on, were already pledged and in open 
revolt. *'By the God I do not altogether serve," Owain 
ended, "you have but to declare yourself, sire, and 
within the moment England is yours." 

More lately Richard spoke with narrowed eyes. "You 
forget that while Henry of Lancaster lives no other man 
will ever reign out a tranquil week in these islands. 
Come then! the hour strikes; and we will coax the devil 
for once in a way to serve God." 

"Oh, but there is a boundary appointed," Glyndw3^r 
moodily returned. "You, too, forget that in cold blood 
this Henry stabbed my best-loved son. But I do not 
forget this, and I have tried divers methods which we 
need not speak of — I w^ho can at will corrupt the air, 
and cause sickness and storms, raise heavy mists, and 
create plagues and fires and shipwrecks ; yet the life itself 
I cannot take. For there is a boundary appointed, sire, 
and in the end the Master of our Sabbaths cannot serve 
us even though he would." 

And Richard crossed himself. "You horribly mistake 
my meaning. Your practices are your own affair, and in 
them I decline to dabble. I design but to trap a tiger 
with his appropriate bait. For you have a fief at Caer 
Idion, I think? — Verv well! I intend to herd your sheep 

156 



®i}0 i>t0ry of lift ^rabbarin 

there, for a week or two, after the honorable example of 
Apollo. It is your part merely to see that Henry knows I 
live alone and in disguise at Caer Idion." 

The gaunt Welshman chuckled. "Yes, Bolingbroke 
would cross the world, much less the Severn, to make 
quite sure of Richard's death. He would come in his 
ow^n person with at most some twenty followers. I 
will have a hundred there; and certain aging scores 
will then be settled in that place." Glyndwyr meditated 
afterward, very evilly. "Sire," he said without prelude, 
"I do not recognize Richard of Bordeaux. You have 
garnered much in travelling!" 

"Why, look you," Richard returned, "I have garnered 
so much that I do not greatly care whether this scheme 
succeed or no. With age I begin to contend even more 
indomitably that a wise man will consider nothing very 
seriously. You barons here believe it an affair of im- 
portance who may chance to be the King of England, 
say, this time next year; you take sides between Henry 
and myself. I tell you frankly that neither of us, that 
no man in the world, by reason of innate limitations, 
can ever rule otherwise than abominably, or, ruling, 
create anything save discord. Nor can I see how this 
matters either, since the discomfort of an ant-village 
is not, after all, a planet-wrecking disaster. Nay, if the 
planets do indeed sing together, it is, depend upon it, 
to the burden of Fools All. For I am as liberally endowed 
as most people; and when I consider my abilities, per- 
formances, instincts, and so on, quite aloofly, as I would 
those of another person, I can only shrug: and to conceive 
that common-sense, much less Omnipotence, would ever 
concern itself about the actions of a creature so entirely 
futile is, to me at least, impossible." 

"I have know^n the thought," said Owain — "though 

157 



rarely since I found the Englishwoman that was after- 
ward my wife, and never since my son, my Gruffyd, 
was murdered by a jesting man. He was more like me 
than the others, people said. . . . You are as yet the empty 
scabbard, powerless alike for help or hurt. Ey, hate or 
love must be the sword, sire, that informs us here, and 
then, if only for a little while, we are as gods." 

**Pardie! I have loved as often as Salomon, and in 
fourteen kingdoms." 

**We of Cymry have a saying, sire, that when a man 
loves par amours the second time he may safely assume 
that he has never been in love at all." 

"And I hate Henry of Lancaster as I do the devil." 

''I greatly fear," said Owain wdth a sigh, "lest it may 
be your irreparable malady to hate nothing, not even 
that which you dislike." 

So then Glyndwyr rode south to besiege and burn the 
town of Caerdyf, while at Caer Idion Richard Holland 
tranquilly abode for some three weeks. There was in 
this place only Caradawc (the former shepherd), his 
wife Alundyne, and their sole daughter Branwen. They 
gladly perceived Sire Richard was no more a peasant 
than he was a curmudgeon; as Caradawc observed: "It 
is perfectly apparent that the robe of Padarn Beisrudd 
would fit him as a glove does the hand, but we will ask 
no questions, since it is not wholesome to dispute the 
orderings of Owain Glyndwyr." 

They did not; and later day by day would Richard 
Holland drive the flocks to pasture near the Severn, and 
loll there in the shade, and make songs to his lute. He 
grew to love this leisured life of bright and open spaces ; 
and its long solitudes, grateful with the warm odors of 
growing things and with poignant bird-noises, and the 
tranquillity of these meadow^s, that were always void of 

158 



hurry, bedrugged the man through many fruitless and 
incurious hours. 

Each day at noon would Branwen bring his dinner, 
and sometimes chat with him while he ate. After supper 
he would discourse to Branwen of remote kingdoms, 
wherethrough he had ridden at adventure, as the wind 
veers, among sedate and alien peoples who adjudged 
him a madman; and she, in turn, would tell him many 
curious tales from the Red Book of Hergest — as of 
Gwalchmai, and Peredur, and Geraint, in each one 
of whom she had presently discerned an inadequate fore- 
runnership of Richard's existence. 

This Branwen was a fair wench, slender as a wand, 
and, in a harmless way, of a bold demeanor twin to that 
of a child who is ignorant of evil and in consequence of 
suspicion. Happily, though, had she been named for 
that unhappy lady of old, the wife of King Matholwch, 
for this Branwen, too, had a white, thin, wistful face, 
like that of an empress on a silver coin which is a little 
worn. Her eyes were large and brilliant, colored like 
clear emeralds, and her abundant hair was so much 
cornfloss, only more brightly yellow and of immeasurably 
finer texture. In full sunlight her cheeks were frosted 
like the surface of a peach, but the underlying cool pink 
of them was rather that of a cloud, Richard decided. In 
all, a taking morsel! though her shapely hands were hard 
with labor, and she rarely laughed ; for, as in recompense, 
her heart was tender and ignorant of discontent, and she 
rarely ceased to smile as over some peculiar and wonderful 
secret which she intended, in due time, to share with 
you alone. Branwen had many lovers, and preferred 
among them young Gwyllem ap Llyr, a portly lad, who 
was handsome enough, for all his tiny and piggish eyes, 
and sang divinely. 

159 



QHjtualrg 

Presently this Gwyllem came to Richard with two 
quarter-staves. ''Saxon," he said, "you appear a stout 
man. Take your pick of these, then, and have at you." 

"Such are not the weapons I would have named," 
Richard answered* "yet in reason, messire, I may not 
deny you." 

With that they laid aside their coats and fell to exer- 
cise. In these unaccustomed bouts Richard was sound- 
ly drubbed, as he had anticipated, but throughout he 
found himself the stronger man, and he managed some- 
how to avoid an absolute overthrow. By what method 
he never ascertained. 

"I have forgotten what we are fighting about," he 
observed, after a half-hour of this; "or, to be perfectly 
exact, I never knew. But we will fight no more in this 
place. Come and go with me to Welshpool, Messire 
Gwyllem, and there we will fight to a conclusion over 
good sack and claret." 

"Content!" cried Gwyllem; "but only if you yield me 
Branwen." 

"Have we indeed wasted a whole half -hour in squab- 
bling over a woman?" Richard demanded; "like two 
children in a worldwide toyshop over any one particular 
toy? Then devil take me if I am not heartily ashamed 
of my folly! Though, look you, Gwyllem, I would speak 
naught save commendation of these delicate and livelily- 
tinted creatures so long as one is able to approach them 
in a proper spirit of levity : it is only their not infrequent 
misuse which I would condemn; and in my opinion the 
person who elects to build a shrine for any one of them 
has only himself to blame if his divinity will ascend no 
pedestal save the carcass of his happiness. Yet have 
many men since time was young been addicted to the 
practice, as were Hercules and Merlin to their illimitable 

1 60 



®Il0 g^tnrg tt{ tJ|^ ^rafabarh 

sorrow; and, indeed, the more I reconsider the old gal- 
lantries of Salomon, and of other venerable and sagacious 
potentates, the more profoundly am I ashamed of my 
sex." 

Gwyllem said: ''That is all very fine. Perhaps it is 
also reasonable. Only when you love you do not reason." 

"I was endeavoring to prove that," said Richard 
gently. Then they went to Welshpool, ride and tie on 
Gwyllem 's horse. Tongue loosened by the claret, Gwyllem 
raved aloud of Branwen, like a babbling faun, while to 
each rapture Richard affably assented. In his heart 
he likened the boy to Dionysos at Naxos, and could find 
no blame for Ariadne. Moreover, the room was com- 
fortably dark and cool, for thick vines hung about either 
window, rustling and tapping pleasantly, and Richard 
was content. 

''She does not love me?" Gwyllem cried. "It is well 
enough. I do not come to her as one merchant to an- 
other, since love was never bartered. Listen, Saxon! " He 
caught up Richard's lute. The strings shrieked beneath 
Gwyllem's fingers as he fashioned his rude song. 

Sang Gwyllem: 

*' Love me or love me not, it is enough 
That I have loved you, seeing my whole life is 
Uplifted and made glad by the glory of Love — 
My life that was a scroll all marred and blurred 
With tavern-catches, which that pity of his 
Erased, and writ instead one perfect word, 
O Branwen I 

* ' / have accorded you incessant praise 
And song and service long, O Love, for this, 
And always I have dreamed incessantly 

i6i 



Qlljttialrg 

Who always dreamed, ' When in oncoming days 
This man or that shall love you, and at last 
This man or that shall win you, it must he 
That loving him you will have piiy on me 
When happiness engenders memory 
And long thoughts, nor unkindly, of the past, 
O BranwenT 

"7 know not! — ah, I know not, who am sure 
That I shall always love you while I live! 
And being dead, and with no more to give 
Of song or service? — Love shall yet endure, 
And yet retain his last prerogative, 
When I lie still, through many centuries. 
And dream of you and the exceeding love 
I bore you, and am glad dreaming thereof, 
And give God thanks therefor, and so find peace, 
Branwen!'' 

" Now, were I to get as tipsy as that," Richard enviously 
thought, midway in a return to his stolid sheep, " I would 
simply go to sleep and wake up with a headache. And 
were I to fall as many fathoms deep in love as this Gwyllem 
has blundered without any astonishment I would perform 
— I wonder, now, what miracle?" 

For he was, though vaguely, discontent. This Gwyllem 
was so young, so earnest over every trifle, and above all 
so unvexed by any rational afterthought ; and each desire 
controlled him as varying winds sport with a fallen leaf, 
whose frank submission to superior vagaries the boy 
appeared to emulate. Richard saw that in a fashion 
Gwyllem wiis superb. "And heigho!" said Richard, 
** I am attestedly a greater fool than he, but I begin to 
weary of a folly so thin-blooded." 

162 



The next morning came a ragged man, riding upon a 
mule. He claimed to be a tinker. He chatted out an 
hour with Richard, who perfectly recognized him as Sir 
Walter Blount; and then this tinker crossed over into 
England. 

And Richard whistled. " Now will my cousin be quite 
sure, and now will my anxious cousin come to speak with 
Richard of Bordeaux. And now, by every saint in the 
calendar! I am as good as King of England." 

He sat down beneath a young oak and twisted four or 
five blades of grass between his fingers what while he 
meditated. Undoubtedly he would kill Henry of Lan- 
caster with a clear conscience and even with a certain 
relish, much as one crushes the uglier sort of vermin, but, 
hand upon heart, he was unable to protest any particularly 
ardent desire for the scoundrel's death. Thus crudely 
to demolish the knave's adroit and year-long schemings 
savored of a tyranny a shade too gross. The spider 
was venomous, and his destruction laudable; granted, 
but in crushing him you ruined his web, a miracle of 
patient malevolence, which, despite yourself, compelled 
both admiration and envy. True, the process would 
recrown a certain Richard, but then, as he recalled it, 
being King was rather tedious. Richard was not now 
quite sure that he wanted to be King, and in consequence 
be daily plagued by a host of vexatious and ever-squab- 
bling barons. *'I shall miss the little huzzy, too," he 
thought. 

''Heigho!" said Richard, *'I shall console myself with 
purchasing all beautiful things that can be touched and 
handled. Life is a flimsy vapor which passes and is not 
any more : presently is Branwen married to this Gwyllem 
and grown fat and old, and I am remarried to Dame 
Isabel of France, and am King of England : and a trifle 

163 



later all four of us will be dead. Pending this deplorable 
consummation a wise man will endeavor to amuse him- 
self." 

Next day he despatched Caradawc to Owain Glyndwyr 
to bid the latter send the promised implements to Caer 
Idion. Richard, returning to the hut the same evening, 
found Alundyne there, alone, and grovelling at the 
threshold. Her forehead was bloodied when she raised 
it and through tearless sobs told of the day's happenings. 
A half-hour since, while she and Branwen were intent 
upon their milking, Gwyllem had ridden up, somewhat 
the worse for liquor. Branwen had called him sot, 
had bidden him go home. "That will I do," said Gwyl- 
lem and suddenly caught up the girl. Alundyne sprang 
for him, and with clenched fist Gwyllem struck her 
twice full in the face, and laughing, rode away with 
Branwen. 

Richard made no observation. In silence he fetched 
his horse, and did not pause to saddle it. Quickly he 
rode to Gwyllem's house, and broke in the door. Against 
the farther wall stood lithe Branwen fighting silently in 
a hideous conflict; her breasts and shoulders were naked, 
where Gwyllem had torn away her garments. He 
wheedled, laughed, swore, and hiccoughed, turn by turn, 
but she was silent. 

"On guard!" Richard barked. Gwyllem wheeled. 
His head twisted toward his left shoulder, and one corner 
of his mouth convulsively snapped upward, so that his 
teeth were bared. There was a knife at Richard's girdle, 
which he now unsheathed and flung away. He stepped 
eagerly toward the snarling Welshman, and with either 
hand seized the thick and hairy throat. What followed 
was brutal. 

For many minutes Branwen stood with averted face, 

164 



shuddering. She very dimly heard the sound of Gwyllem's 
impotent great fists as they beat against the countenance 
and body of Richard, and the thin spHtting vicious noise 
of torn cloth as Gwyllem clutched at Richard's tunic 
and tore it many times. Richard uttered no articulate 
word, and Gwyllem could not. There was entire silence 
for a heart-beat, and then the fall of something ponderous 
and limp. 

"Come!*' Richard said. Through the hut's twilight, 
glorious in her eyes as Michael fresh from that primal 
battle, Richard came to her, his face all blood, and lifted 
her in his arms lest Branwen's skirt be soiled by the 
demolished thing which sprawled across their path. 
She never spoke. She could not. In his arms she 
rode presently, passive, and incuriously content. The 
horse trod with deliberation. In the east the young 
moon was taking heart as the darkness thickened about 
them, and innumerable stars awoke. 

Richard was horribly afraid. He it had been, in 
sober verity it had been Richard of Bordeaux, that some 
monstrous force had seized, and had lifted, and had 
curtly utilized as its handiest implement. He had been, 
and in the moment had known himself to be, the thrown 
spear as yet in air, about to kill and quite powerless to 
refrain therefrom. It was a full three minutes before 
he got the better of his bewilderment and laughed, very 
softly, lest he disturb this Branwen, who was so near 
his heart. . . . 

Next day she came to him at noon, bearing as always 
the little basket. It contained to-day a napkin, some 
garlic, a ham, and a small soft cheese; some shalots, 
salt, nuts, wild apples, lettuce, onions, and mushrooms. 
** Behold a feast!" said Richard. He noted then that 
she carried also a blue pitcher filled with thin wine 

165 



Olljihalrg 

and two cups of oak-bark. She thanked him for last 
night's performance, and drank a mouthful of wine to his 
health. 

"Decidedly, I shall be sorry to have done with shep- 
herding," said Richard as he ate. 

Branwen answered, " I too shall be sorry, lord, when the 
masquerade is ended." And it seemed to Richard that 
she sighed, and he was the happier. 

But he only shrugged. " I am the wisest person un- 
hanged, since I comprehend my own folly. And so, I 
think, was once the minstrel of old time that sang : * Over 
wild lands and tumbling seas flits Love, at w411, and 
maddens the heart and beguiles the senses of all whom 
he attacks, whether his quarry be some monster of the 
ocean or some wild denizen of the forest, or man ; for thine, 
O Love, thine alone is the power to make playthings 
of us all.'" 

" Your bard was wise, no doubt, yet it was not in similar 
terms that Gwyllem sang of this passion. Lord," she de- 
manded shyly, " how would you sing of love ? " 

Richard was replete and quite contented with the 
world. He took up the lute, in full consciousness that 
his compliance was in large part cenatory. *' In courtesy, 
thus—" 

Sang Richard: 

" The gods in honor of fair Branwen' s worth 
Bore gifts to her — and Jove, Olympus' lord, 
Co-rule of Earth and Heaven did accord. 
And Venus gave her slender body's girth, 
And Mercury the lyre he framed at birth, 
And Mars his jewelled and resistless sword, 
And wrinkled Plutus all the secret hoard 
And immemorial treasure of mid-earth, — 

1 66 



2ni^ ^t0rg nf tlj0 i^rabbari 

''And while the puzzled gods were pondering 
Which of these goodly gifts the goodliest was, 

Dan Cupid came among them carolling 
And proffered unto her a looking-glass, 

Wherein she gazed and saw the goodliest thing 

That Earth had home, and Heaven might not surpass.'' 

"Three sounds are rarely heard," said Branwen; 
"and these are the song of the birds of Rhiannon, an 
invitation to feast with a miser, and a speech of wisdom 
from the mouth of a Saxon. The song you have made 
of courtesy is tinsel. Sing now in verity." 

Richard laughed, though he was sensibly nettled and 
perhaps a shade abashed; and presently he sang again. 

Sang Richard: 

''Catullus might have made of words that seek 
With rippling sound, in soft recurrent ways. 
The perfect song, or in the old dead days 

Theocritus have hymned you in glad Greek; 

But I am not as they — and dare not speak 
Of you unworthily, and dare not praise 
Perfection with imperfect roundelays, 

And desecrate the prize I dare to seek. 

'' I do not woo you, then, by fashioning 

Vext similes of you and Guenevere, 
And durst not come with agile lips that bring 

The sugared periods of a sonneteer. 
And bring no more — but just with lips that cling 

To yours, and murmur against them, ' / love you, dear!' " 

For Richard had resolved that Branwen should believe 
him. Tinsel, indeed! then here was yet more tinsel 

167 



ffljjttialrg 

which she must and should receive as gold. He was 
very angry, because his vanity was hurt, and the pin- 
prick spurred him to a counterfeit so specious that con- 
sciously he gloried in it. He was superb, and she believed 
him now; there was no questioning the fact, he saw it 
plainly, and with exultant cruelty ; and curt as lightning 
came the knowledge that she believed the absolute 
truth. 

Richard had taken just two strides, and toward this 
fair girl. Branwen stayed motionless, her lips a little 
parted. The affairs of earth and heaven were motionless 
throughout the moment, attendant, it seemed to him; 
and his whole life was like a wave, to him, that trembled 
now at full height, and he was aware of a new world all 
made of beauty and of pity. Then the lute snapped 
between his fingers, and Richard shuddered, and his 
countenance was the face of a man only. 

''There is a task," he said, hoarsely — *'it is God's work, 
I think. But I do not know — I only know that you are 
very beautiful, Branwen," he said, and in the name he 
found a new and piercing loveliness. 

More lately he said: "Go! For I have loved so many 
women, and, God help me! I know that I have but to 
wheedle you and you, too, will yield! Yonder is God's 
work to be done, and within me rages a comm.onwealth of 
devils. Child! child!" he cried in agony, "I am, and 
ever was, a coward, too timid to face life without reserve, 
and always I laughed because I was afraid to concede 
that anything is serious!" 

For a long while Richard lay at his ease in the length- 
ening shadows of the afternoon. 

" I love her. She thinks me an elderly imbecile with 
a flat and reedy singing-voice, and she is perfectly right. 
She has never even entertained the notion of loving me. 

i68 



That is well, for to-morrow, or, it may be, the day after, 
we must part forever. I would not have the parting 
make her sorrowful — or not, at least, too unalterably 
sorrowful. It is very well that Bran wen does not love 
me. 

" How should she ? I am almost twice her age, an old 
fellow now, battered and selfish and too indolent to love 
her — say, as Gwyllem did. I did well to kill that Gwyllem. 
I am profoundly glad I killed him, and I thoroughly 
enjoyed doing it; but, after all, the man loved her in his 
fashion, and to the uttermost reach of his gross nature. 
I love her in a rather more decorous and acceptable 
fashion, it is true, but only a half of me loves her; and 
the other half of me remembers that I am aging, that 
Caradawc's hut is leaky, that, in fine, bodily comfort is 
the single luxury of which one never tires. I am a very 
contemptible creature, the handsome scabbard of a man, 
precisely as Owain said." This settled, Richard whistled 
to his dog. 

The sun had set, but it was not more than dusk. There 
were no shadows anywhere as Richard and his sheep 
went homeward, but on every side the colors of the world 
were more sombre. Twice his flock roused a covey of 
partridges which had settled for the night. The screech- 
owl had come out of his hole, and bats were already 
blundering about, and the air was more cool. There 
was as yet but one star in the green and cloudless heaven, 
and this was very large, like a beacon, and it appeared 
to him symbolical that he trudged away from it. 

Next day the Welshmen came, and now the trap was 
ready for Henry of Lancaster. 

It befell just two days later, about noon, that while 
Richard idly talked with Branwen a party of soldiers, 
some fifteen in number, rode down the river's bank from 

169 



(Hijttralrg 

the ford above. Their leader paused, then gave an order. 
The men drew rein. He cantered forward. 

"God give you joy, fair sir," said Richard, when the 
cavalier was at his elbow. 

The new-comer raised his visor. " God give you eternal 
joy, my fair cousin," he said, ''and very soon. Now send 
away this woman before that happens which must happen. ' ' 

"You design murder?" Richard said. 

" I design my own preservation," King Henry answered, 
"for while you live my rule is insecure." 

"I am sorry," Richard said, "because in part my 
blood is yours." 

Twice he sounded his horn, and everyivhere from 
rustling underwoods arose the half -naked Welshmen. 
"Your men are one to ten. You are impotent. Now, 
now we balance our accounts!" cried Richard. "These 
persons here will first deal with your followers. Then 
will they conduct you to Glyndwyr, who has long desired 
to deal with you himself, in privacy, since that Whit- 
Monday when you stabbed his son." 

The King began: "In mercy, sire — !" and Richard 
laughed a little. 

" That virtue is not overabundant among us Plantag- 
enets, as both we know. Nay, Fate and Time are 
merry jesters. See, now, their latest mockery! You 
the King of England ride to Sycharth to your death, 
and I the tender of sheep depart into London, without 
any hindrance, to reign henceforward over all these 
islands. To-morrow you are worm's-meat ; and to- 
morrow, as aforetime, I am King of England." 

Then Branwen gave one sharp, brief cry, and Richard 
forgot all things saving this girl, and strode to her. He 
had caught up either of her hard, lithe hands; against 
his lips he strained them close and very close. 

170 




Fatntmg by Howard Pyle 

"'YOU DESIGN MURDER?' RICHARD ASKED 



*' Branwen — !" he said. His eyes devoured her. 

"Yes, King," she answered. "O King of England! 
O fool that I had been to think you less! " 

In a while Richard said: *'Now I choose between a 
peasant wench and England. Now I choose, and, ah, 
how gladly! O Branwen, help me to be more than King 
of England!" 

Low and very low he spoke, and long and very long he 
gazed at her and neither seemed to breathe. Of what 
she thought I cannot tell you ; but in Richard there was 
no power of thought, only a great wonderment. Why, 
between this woman and aught else there was no choice 
for him, he knew upon a sudden, and could never be! He 
was very glad. He loved the tiniest content of the world. 

Meanwhile, as from an immense distance, came to this 
Richard the dogged voice of Henry of Lancaster. *'It 
is of common report in these islands that I have a better 
right to the throne than you. As much was told our 
grandfather. King Edward of happy memory, when he 
educated you and had you acknowledged heir to the crown, 
but his love was so strong for his son the Prince of Wales 
that nothing could alter his purpose. And indeed if you 
had followed even the example of the Black Prince you 
might still have been our King; but you have always 
acted so contrarily to his admirable precedents as to 
occasion the rumor to be generally believed throughout 
England that you were not, after all, his son — " 

Richard had turned impatiently. "For the love of 
Heaven, truncate your abominable periods. Be off with 
you. Yonder across that river is the throne of England, 
which you appear, through some hallucination, to con- 
sider a desirable possession. Take it, then; for, praise 
God! the sword has found its sheath." 

The King answered: "I do not ask you to reconsider 

171 



Qlijitialrg 

your dismissal, assuredly — Richard," he cried, a little 
shaken, " I perceive that until your death you will win 
contempt and love from every person." 

'*Ay, for many years I have been the playmate of the 
world," said Richard; "but to-day I wash my hands, 
and set about another and more laudable business. I 
had dreamed certain dreams, indeed — ^but what had I 
to do with all this strife between the devil and the tiger ? 
Nay, Glyndwyr will set up Mortimer against you now, 
and you two must fight it out. I am no more his tool, 
and no more your enem}^, my cousin — Henry," he said 
w4th quickening voice, *' there was a time when we were 
boys and played together, and there was no hatred 
between us, and I regret that time!" 

"As God lives, I too regret that time!" the bluff King 
said. He stared at Richard for a while wherein each 
understood. '* Dear fool," he said, " there is no man in all 
the world but hates me saving only you. ' ' Then the proud 
King clapped spurs to his proud horse and rode away. 

More lately Richard dismissed his wondering marauders. 
Now were only he and Branwen left, alone and yet a little 
troubled, since either was afraid of that oncoming moment 
when their eyes must meet. 

So Richard laughed. "Praise God!" he wildly cried, 
"I am the greatest fool unhanged!" 

She answered: " I am the happier. I am the happiest 
of God's creatures," Branwen said. 

And Richard meditated. "Faith of a gentleman!" he 
declared ; " but you are nothing of the sort, and of this fact 
I happen to be quite certain." Their lips met then and 
afterward their eyes; and either was too glad for laughter. 



THE END OF THE EIGHTH NOVEL 



IX 

''J' ay en mon cueur joyeusement 
Escript, afin que ne roublie, 
Ce refrain qu'ayme chierement, 
C'estes vous de qui suis amye.'^ 



THE NINTH NOVEL. — JEHANE OF NAVARRE, AFTER A SHREWD 
WITHSTANDING OF ALL OTHER ASSAULTS, IS IN A LONG 
DUEL WHEREIN TIME AND COMMON-SENSE ARE FLOUTED, 
AND TWO KINGDOMS SHAKEN, ALIKE DETHRONED AND 
RECOMPENSED BY AN ENDURING LUNACY. 




'N the year of grace 1386, upon the feast 
of Saint Bartholomew (thus Nicolas 
begins), came to the Spanish coast 
Messire Peyre de Lesnerac, in a war-ship 
sumptuously furnished and manned by 
many persons of dignity and wealth, in 
order they might suitably escort the Princess Jehane into 
Brittany, where she was to marry the Duke of that 
province. There were now rejoicings throughout Navarre, 
in which the Princess took but a nominal part and young 
Antoine Riczi none at all. 

This Antoine Riczi came to Jehane that August twilight 
in the hedged garden. "King's daughter!" he sadly 
greeted her. " Duchess of Brittany ! Countess of Rouge- 
mont! Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! of Rais and of 
Toufon and Guerche!" 

"Nay," she answered, "Jehane, whose only title is the 
Constant Lover." And in the green twilight, lit as yet 
by one low-hanging star alone, their lips met, as aforetime. 
Presently the girl spoke. Her soft mouth was lax and 
tremulous, and her gray eyes were more brilliant than 
the star yonder. The boy's arms were about her, so 
that neither could be quite unhappy; and besides, a 
sorrow too noble for any bitterness had mastered them, 
and a vast desire whose aim they could not word, or even 
apprehend save cloudily. 

17.S 



(ttlltfaalrg 

"Friend," said Jehane, "I have no choice. I must 
wed with this de Montfort. I think I shall die presently. 
I have prayed God that I may die before they bring me 
to the dotard's bed." 

Young Riczi held her now in an embrace more brutal. 
"Mine! mine!" he snarled toward the obscuring heavens. 

" Yet it may be I must live. Friend, the man is very 
old. Is it wicked to think of that? For I cannot but 
think of his great age." 

Then Riczi answered: "My desires — may God forgive 
me! — have clutched like starving persons at that sorry 
sustenance. Friend! ah, fair, sweet friend! the man is 
human and must die, but love, we read, is immortal, 
I am fain to die, Jehane. But, oh, Jehane! dare you to 
bid me live?" 

" Friend, as you love me, I entreat you live. Friend, 
I crave of the Eternal Father that if I falter in my love 
for you I may be denied even the bleak night of ease 
which Judas knows." The girl did not weep; dry-eyed 
she winged a perfectly sincere prayer toward incor- 
ruptible saints. He was to remember the fact, and 
through long years. 

For even as Riczi left her, yonder behind the yew-hedge a 
shrill joculatrix sang, in rehearsal for Jehane's bridal feast. 

Sang the joculatrix: 

" When the morning broke before us 
Came the wayward Three astraying^ 
Chattering a trivial chorus — 

Hoidens that at handball playing 
{When they wearied of their playing), 
Cast the Ball where now it whirls 

Through the coil of clouds unstaying, 
For the Fates are merry girls!'' 

176 



' And upon the next day dc Lesnerac bore young Jchane 
from Panipeluna and presently to Saille, where old 
Jehan the Brave took her to wife. She lived as a queen, 
but she was a woman of infrequent laughter. 

She had Duke Jehan's adoration, and his barons' 
obeisancy, and his villagers applauded her passage with 
stentorian shouts. She passed interminable days amid 
bright curious arrasses and trod listlessly over pavements 
strewn with flowers. Fiery-hearted jewels she had, and 
shimmering purple cloths, and much furniture adroitly 
carven, and many tapestries of Samarcand and Baldach 
upon which were embroidered, by brown fingers time 
turned long ago to Asian dust, innumerable asps and deer 
and phoenixes and dragons and all the motley inhabitants 
of air and of the thicket: but her memories, too, she had, 
and for a dreary while she got no comfort because of 
them. Then ambition quickened. 

Young Antoine Riczi likewise nursed his wound as best 
he might ; but about the end of the second year his uncle, 
the Vicomte de Montbrison — a gaunt man, with pre- 
occupied and troubled eyes — had summoned Antoine 
into Lyonnois and, after appropriate salutation, had 
informed the lad that, as the Vicomte's heir, he was to 
marry the Demoiselle Gerberge de Nerac upon the ensuing 
Michaelmas. 

**That I may not do," said Riczi; and since a chronicler 
that would tempt fortune should never stretch the fabric 
of his wares too thin, unlike Sir Hengist, I merely tell you 
these two dwelt together at Montbrison for a decade, 
and always the Vicomte swore at his nephew and predicted 
this or that disastrous destination so often as Antoine 
declined to marry the latest of his uncle's candidates — 
in whom the Vicomte was of an astonishing fertility. 

In the year of grace 1401 came the belated news that 

177 



Qlljitialrg 

Duke Jehan had closed his final day. " You will be leav- 
ing me!" the Vicomte growled; "now, in my decrep- 
itude, you will be leaving me! It is abominable, and 
I shall in all likelihood disinherit you this very night." 

"Yet it is necessary," Riczi answered; and, filled with 
no unhallowed joy, rode not long afterward for Vannes, 
in Brittany, where the Duchess-Regent held her court. 
Dame Jehane had within that fortnight put aside her 
mourning, and sat beneath a green canopy, gold-fringed 
and powdered with many golden stars, upon the night 
when he first came to her, and the rising saps of spring 
were exercising their august and formidable influence. 
She sat alone, by prearrangement, to one end of the 
high-ceiled and radiant apartment; midway in the hall 
her lords and divers ladies were gathered about a salta- 
trice and a jongleur, who diverted them to the mincing 
accompaniment of a lute; but Jehane sat apart from 
these, frail, and splendid with many jewels, and a little 
sad, and, as ever (he thought), was hers a beauty clarified 
of its mere substance — the beauty, say, of a moonbeam 
which penetrates full-grown leaves. 

And Antoine Riczi found no power of speech within 
him at the first. Silent he stood before her for an obvious 
interval, still as an effigv, while meltingly the jongleur 
sang. 

"Jehane!" said Antoine Riczi, "have you, then, 
forgotten, O Jehane?" 

Nor had the resplendent woman moved at all. It was 
as though she were some tinted and lavishly adorned 
statue of barbaric heathenry, and he her postulant; 
and her large eyes appeared to judge an immeasurable 
path, beyond him. Now her lips had fluttered some- 
what. "The Duchess of Brittany am I," she said, and 
in the phantom of a voice. " The Countess of Rougemont 

178 



®I|0 §>t0rg nf tlt^ Nattarr^fi^ 

am I. The Lady of Nantes and of Guerrand! of Rais and 
of Toufon and Guerche! . . . Jehane is dead." 

The man had drawn one audible breath. "You are 
Jehane, whose only title is the Constant Lover!" 

"Friend, the world smirches us," she said half-plead- 
ingly. "I have tasted too deep of wealth and power. 
Drunk with a deadly wine am I, and ever I thirst — I 
thirst—" 

"Jehane, do you remember that May morning in 
Pampeluna when first I kissed you, and about us sang 
many birds? Then as now you wore a gown of green, 
Jehane." 

"Friend, I have swayed kingdoms since." 

"Jehane, do you remember that August twilight in 
Pam.peluna when last I kissed you? Then as now you 
wore a gown of green, Jehane." 

"But no such chain as this about my neck," the 
woman answered, and lifted a huge golden collar garnished 
with emeralds and sapphires and with many pearls. 
"Friend, the chain is heavy, yet I lack the will to cast 
it off. I lack the will, Antoine." And with a sudden 
roar of mirth her courtiers applauded the evolutions of 
the saltatrice. 

"King's daughter!" said Riczi then; "O perilous mer- 
chandise! a god came to me and a sword had pierced 
his breast. He touched the gold hilt of it and said, 
'Take back your weapon.' I answered, 'I do not know 
you.' *I am Youth,' he said; 'take back your weap- 
on.'" 

" It is true," she responded, "it is lamentably true that 
after to-night we arc as different persons, you and L" 

He said: "Jehane, do you not love me any longer? 
Remember old years and do not break your oath with 
me, Jehane, since God abhors nothing so much as perfidy. 

13 179 



For your own sake, Jehane — ah, no, not for your sake 
nor for mine, but for the sake of that bhthe Jehane, 
whom, so you tell me, time has slain!" 

Once or twice she blinked, as dazzled by a light of 
intolerable splendor, but otherwise sat rigid. *'You 
have dared, messire, to confront me with the golden- 
hetirted, clean-eyed Navarrese that once was I! and I 
requite." The austere woman rose. "Messire, you 
swore to me, long since, an eternal service. I claim my 
bond. Yonder prim man — gray-bearded, the man in 
black and silver — is the Earl of Worcester, the King of 
England's ambassador, in common with whom the wealthy 
dowager of Brittany has signed a certain contract. Go 
you, then, with Worcester into England, as my proxy, 
and in that island, as my proxy, wed the King of England. 
Messire, your audience is done." 

Latterly Riczi said this: "Can you hurt me any more, 
Jehane? — nay, even in hell they cannot hurt me now. 
Yet I, at least, keep faith, and in your face I fling faith 
like a glove — old-fashioned, it may be, but clean — and 
I will go, Jehane." 

Her heart raged. "Poor, glorious fool!" she thought; 
" had you but the wit even now to use me brutally, even 
now to drag me from this dais — !" Instead he went 
from her smilingly, treading through the hall with many 
affable salutations, while always the jongleur sang. 

Sang the jongleur: 

" There is a land the rabble rout 

Knows not, whose gates are barred 
By Titan twins, named Fear and Doubt, 

That mercifully guard 
The land we seek — the land so fair! — 
And all the fields thereof, 
1 80 



** Where daffodils grow everywhere 

About the Fields of Love — 
Knowing that in the Middle-Land 

A tiny pool there lies 
And serpents from the slimy strand 

Lift glittering cold eyes, 

"Now, the parable all may unaer stand, 
And surely you knoiv the name o' the land! 

Ah, never a guide or ever a chart 
May safely lead you about this land, — 
The Land of the Human Heart!'' 

And the following morning, being duly empowered, 
Antoine Riczi sailed for England in company with the 
Earl of Worcester, and upon Saint Richard's day the 
next ensuing was, at Eltham, as proxy of Jehane, married 
in his own person to the bloat King of England. First 
had Sire Henry placed the ring on Riczi's finger, and then 
spoke Antoine Riczi, very loud and clear: 

'* I, Antoine Riczi — in the name of my worshipful lady. 
Dame Jehane, the daughter of Messire Charles until lately 
King of Navarre, the Duchess of Brittany and the 
Countess of Rougemont — do take you, Sire Henry of 
Lancaster, King of England and in title of France, and 
Lord of Ireland, to be my husband ; and thereto I, Antoine 
Riczi, in the spirit of my said lady" — he paused here to 
regard the gross hulk of masculinity before him, and then 
smiled very sadly — "in precisely the spirit of my said 
lady, I plight you my troth." 

Afterward the King made him presents of some rich 
garments of scarlet trimmed with costly furs, and of four 
silk belts studded with silver and gold, and with valuable 
clasps, whereof the recipient might well be proud, and 

i8i 



QUftttalrji 

Riczi returned to Lyonnois. *'Depardieux!" his uncle 
said; "so you return alone!" 

"As Prince Troilus did," said Riczi — "to boast to you 
of liberal entertainment in the tent of Diomede." 

"You are certainly an inveterate fool," the Vicomte 
considered after a prolonged appraisal of his face, " since 
there is always a deal of other pink-and-white flesh as 
yet unmortgaged — ' Boy with my brother's eyes!" the 
Vicomte said, and in another voice; " I would that I were 
God to punish as is fitting! Nay, come home, my lad! — 
come home!" 

So these two abode together at Montbrison for a long 
time, and in the purlieus of that place hunted and hawked, 
and made sonnets once in a while, and read aloud from 
old romances some five days out of the seven. The 
verses of Riczi were in the year of grace 1410 made public, 
and not without acclamation ; and thereafter the stripling 
Comte de Charolais, future heir to all Burgundy and a 
zealous patron of rhyme, was much at Montbrison, and 
there conceived for Antoine Riczi such admiration as 
was possible to a very young man only. 

In the year of grace 141 2 the Vicomte, being then 
bedridden, died without any disease and of no malady 
save the inherencies of his age. "I entreat of you, my 
nephew," he said at last, "that always you use as touch- 
stone the brave deed you did at Eltham. It is necessary 
a man serve his lady according to her commandments, 
but you have performed the most absurd and the crudest 
task which any woman ever imposed upon her servitor. 
I laugh at you, and I envy you." Thus he died, about 
Martinmas. 

Now was Antoine Riczi a powerful baron, and got no 
comfort of his lordship, since in his meditations the King 
of Darkness, that old incendiary, had added a daily fuel 

182 



until the ancient sorrow quickened into vaulting flames 
of wrath and of disgust. 

''What now avail my riches?" said the Vicomte. 
" Nay, how much wealthier was I when I was loved, and 
was myself an eager lover! I relish no other pleasures 
than those of love. Love's sot am I, drunk with a deadly 
wine, poor fool, and ever I thirst. As vapor are all my 
chattels and my acres, and the more my dominion and 
my power increase, the more rancorously does my heart 
sustain its misery, being robbed of that fair merchandise 
which is the King of England's. To hate her is scant 
comfort and to despise her none at all, since it follows 
that I who am unable to forget the wanton am even more 
to be despised than she. I will go into England and 
execute what mischief I may against her." 

The new Vicomte de Montbrison set forth for Paris, 
first to do homage for his fief, and secondly to be accredited 
for some plausible mission into England. But in Paris 
he got disquieting news. Jehane's husband was dead, 
and her stepson Henry, the fifth monarch of that name 
to reign in Britain, had invaded France to support 
preposterous claims which the man advanced to the very 
crown of that latter kingdom ; and as the earth is altered 
by the advent of winter was the appearance of France 
transformed by his coming, and everywhere the nobles 
were stirred up to arms, the castles were closed, the 
huddled cities were fortified, and on either hand arose 
intrenchments. 

Thus through this sudden turn was the new Vicomte, 
the dreamer and the recluse, caught up by the career of 
events, as a straw is by a torrent, when the French lords 
marched with their vassals to Harfleur, where they were 
soundly drubbed by the King of England; as afterward 
at Agincourt. 

183 



Qltfttialrg 

But in the year of grace 141 7 there was a breathing 
space for discredited France, and presently the Vicomte 
de Montbrison was sent into England, as ambassador. 
He got in London a fruitless audience of King Henry, 
whose demands were such as rendered a renewal of the 
war inevitable; and afterward, in the month of April, 
about the day of Palm Sunday, and within her dower- 
palace of Havering-Bower, an interview with Queen 
Jehane. 

Nicolas omits, and unaccountably, to mention that during 
the French wars she had ruled England as Regent, and with 
marvellous capacity — although this fact, as you will see more 
lately, is the pivot of his chronicle. 

A solitary page ushered the Vicomte whither she sat 
alone, by prearrangement, in a chamber with painted 
walls, profusely lighted by the sun, and making pretence 
to weave a tapestry. When the page had gone she rose 
and cast aside the shuttle, and then with a glad and 
wordless cry stumbled toward the Vicomte. "Madame 
and Queen — !" he coldly said. 

A frightened woman, half-distraught, aging now but 
rather handsome, his judgment saw in her, and no more ; 
all black and shimmering gold his senses found her, and 
supple like some dangerous and lovely serpent ; and with 
a contained hatred he had discovered, as by the terse 
illumination of a thunderbolt, that he could never love 
any woman save the woman whom he most despised. 

She said: ''I had forgotten. I had remembered only 
you, Antoine, and Navarre, and the clean-eyed Navar- 
rese — " Now for a little, Jehane paced the gleaming 
and sun-drenched apartment as a bright leopardess 
might tread her cage. Then she wheeled. "Friend, 
I think that God Himself has deigned to avenge you. 
All misery my reign has been. First Hotspur, then prim 

184 



Worcester harried us. Came Glyndwyr afterward to 
prick us with his devil's horns. Followed the dreary 
years that linked me to the rotting corpse God's leprosy 
devoured while the poor furtive thing yet moved. All 
misery, Antoine! And now I live beneath a sword." 

"You have earned no more," he said. "You have 
earned no more, O Jehane ! whose only title is the Constant 
Lover!" He spat it out. 

She came uncertainly toward him, as though he had 
been some not implacable knave with a bludgeon. " For 
the King hates me," she plaintively said, "and I live 
beneath a sword. Ever the big fierce-eyed man has 
hated me, for all his lip-courtesy. And now^ he lacks the 
money to pay his troops, and I am the wealthiest person 
within his realm. I am a woman and alone in a foreign 
land. So I must wait, and wait, and wait, Antoine, 
till he devise some trumped-up accusation. Friend, I 
live as did Saint Damoclus, beneath a sword. Antoine!" 
she wailed — for now was the pride of Queen Jehane 
shattered utterly — "within the island am I a prisoner 
for all that my chains are of gold." 

"Yet it was not until o' late," he observed, "that you 
disliked the metal which is the substance of all crowns.'' 

And now^ the woman lifted to him a huge golden collar 
garnished with emeralds and sapphires and with many 
pearls, and in the sunlight the gems were tawdry things. 
" Friend, the chain is heavy, and I lack the power to cast 
it off. The Navarrese we know of wore no such perilous 
fetters about her neck. Ah, you should have mastered 
me at Vannes. You could have done so, and very easily. 
But you only talked — oh, Mary pity us ! you only talked ! — 
and I could find only a servant where I had sore need to 
find a master. Then pity me." 

But now came many armed soldiers into the apartment. 

185 



(Sljtittilrjj 

With spirit Queen Jehane turned to meet them, and you 
saw that she was of royal blood, for the pride of ill-starred 
emperors blazed and informed her body as light occupies 
a lantern. "At last you come for me, messieurs?" 

"Whereas," their leader read in answer from a parch- 
ment — "whereas the King's stepmother, Queen Jehane, 
is accused by certain persons of an act of witchcraft 
that with diabolical and subtile methods wrought privily 
to destroy the King, the said Dame Jehane is by the King 
committed (all her attendants being removed), to the 
custody of Sir John Peiham, who will, at the King's 
pleasure, confine her within Pevensey Castle, there to be 
kept under Sir John's control: the lands and other 
properties of the said Dame Jehane being hereby forfeit 
to the King, whom God preserve!" 

"Harry of Monmouth!" said Jehane — "oh, Harry of 
Monmouth, could I but come to you, very quietly, and 
with a knife — !" She shrugged her shoulders, and the 
gold about her person glittered in the sunlight. " Witch- 
craft! ohime, one never disproves that. Friend, now are 
you avenged the more abundantly." 

"Young Riczi is avenged," the Vicomte said; "and 
I came hither desiring vengeance." 

She wheeled, a lithe flame (he thought) of splendid 
fury. "And in the gutter Jehane dares say what Queen 
Jehane upon the throne might never say. Had I reigned 
all these years as mistress not of England but of Europe — 
had nations wheedled me in the place of barons — young 
Riczi had been avenged, no less. Bah! w^hat do these 
so-little persons matter ? Take now your petty vengeance ! 
drink deep of it! and know that always within my heart 
the Navarrese has lived to shame me ! Know that to-day 
you despise Jehane, the purchased woman! and that 
Jehane loves you! and that the love of proud Jehane 

j86 




Paint inp bv Elisabeth Sl.-ippcn Green 

"'TAKE NOW YOUR PETTY VENGEANCE!' 



creeps like a beaten cur toward your feet, and in the 
sight of common men! and know that Riczi is avenged, 
— you milHner!" 

" Into England I came desiring vengeance — Apples of 
Sodom! O bitter fruit!" the Vicomte thought; "O fit- 
ting harvest of a fool's assiduous husbandry!" 

They took her from him: and that afternoon, after 
long meditation, the Vicomte de Montbrison entreated 
a fresh and private audience of King Henry, and readily 
obtained it. "Unhardy is unseely," the Vicomte said 
at its conclusion. Then the tale tells that the Vicomte 
returned to France and within this realm assembled all 
such lords as the abuses of the Queen-Regent Isabeau 
had more notoriously dissatified. 

The Vicomte had upon occasion an invaluable power 
of speech; and now, so great was the devotion of love's 
dupe, so heartily, so hastily, did he design to remove the 
discomforts of Queen Jehane, that now his eloquence was 
twin to Belial's. 

Then presently these lords had sided with King Henry, 
as had the Vicomte de Montbrison, in open field. Latterly 
Jehan Sans-Peur was slain at Montereau; and a little 
later the new Duke of Burgundy, who loved the Vicomte 
as he loved no other man, had shifted his coat. After- 
ward fell the poised scale of circumstance, and with an 
aweful clangor ; and now in France clean-hearted persons 
spoke of the Vicomte de Montbrison as they would of 
Ganelon or of Iscariot, and in every market-place was 
King Henry proclaimed as governor of the realm. 

Meantime was Queen Jehane conveyed to prison and 
lodged therein for five years' space. She had the liberty 
of a tiny garden, high- walled, and of two scantily furnished 
chambers. The brace of hard-featured females Pelham 
had provided for the Queen's attendance might speak to 

187 



her of nothing that occurred without the gates of Pevensey, 
and she saw no other persons save her confessor, a triple- 
chinned Dominican; and in fine, had they already lain 
Jehane within the massive and gilded cofHn of a queen 
the outer world would have made as great a turbulence 
in her ears. 

But in the year of grace 1422, upon the feast of Saint 
Bartholomew, and about vespers — for thus it wonder- 
fully fell out — one of those grim attendants brought to 
her the first man, save the fat confessor, whom the Queen 
had seen within five years. The proud, frail woman 
looked and what she saw was the common inhabitant 
of all her dreams. 

Said Jehane: "This is ill done. The years have 
avenged you. Be contented with that knowledge, and, 
for Heaven's sake, do not endeavor to moralize over the 
ruin Heaven has made, and justly made, of Queen 
Jehane, as I perceive you mean to do." She leaned 
backward in the chair, very coarsely clad in brown, but 
knowing her countenance to be that of the anemone 
which naughtily dances above wet earth. 

"Friend," the lean-faced man now said, "I do not 
come with such intent, as my mission will readily attest, 
nor to any ruin, as your mirror will attest. Nay, madame, 
I come as the emissary of King Henry, now dying at 
Vincennes, and with letters to the lords and bishops of 
his council. Dying, the man restores to you your liberty 
and your dower-lands, your bed and all your movables, 
and six gowns of such fashion and such color as you 
may elect." 

Then with hurried speech he told her of five years' 
events: how within that period King Henry had con- 
quered entire France, and had married the French 
King's daughter, and had begotten a boy who would 

188 



presently inherit the united realms of France and England, 
since in the supreme hour of triumph King Henry had 
been stricken with a mortal sickness, and now lay dying 
or perhaps already dead, at Vincennes ; and how with his 
penultimate breath the prostrate conqueror had restored 
to Queen Jehane all properties and all honors which she 
formerly enjoyed. 

"I shall once more be Regent," the woman said when 
he had made an end; "Antoine, I shall presently be 
Regent both of France and of England, since Dame 
Katharine is but a child." Jehane stood motionless save 
for the fine hands that plucked the air. "Mistress of 
Europe! absolute mistress, and with an infant ward! 
now, may God have mercy on my unfriends, for they will 
soon perceive great need of it!" 

" Yet was mercy ever the prerogative of royal persons," 
the Vicomte suavely said, *'and the Navarrese we know 
of was both royal and very merciful, O Constant Lover." 

The speech was as a whip-lash. Abruptly suspicion 
kindled in her eyes, as a flame leaps from stick to stick. 
''Harry of Monmouth feared neither man nor God. It 
needed more than any death-bed repentance to frighten 
him into restoral of my liberty." There was a silence. 
'' You, a Frenchman, come as the emissary of King Henry 
who has devastated France! are there no English lords, 
then, left alive of all his army?" 

The Vicomte de Montbrison said: ''There is perhaps 
no person better fitted to patch up this dishonorable 
business of your captivity, wherein a clean man might 
scarcely dare to meddle." 

She appraised this, and more lately said with entire 
irrelevance: "The world has smirched you, somehow. 
At last you have done something save consider your ill- 
treatment. I praise God, Antoine, for it brings you nearer. ' ' 

189 



He told her all. King Henry, it appeared, had dealt 
with him at Havering in perfect frankness. The King 
needed money for his wars in France, and failing the 
seizure of Jehane's enormous wealth, had exhausted every 
resource. "And France I mean to have," the King said. 
" Yet the world knows you enjoy the favor of the Comte 
de Charolais ; so get me an alliance with Burgundy against 
my imbecile brother of France, and Dame Jehane shall 
repossess her liberty. There you have my price." 

"And this price I paid," the Vicomte sternly said, "for 
'Unhardy is unseely,' Satan whispered, and I knew that 
Duke Philippe trusted me. Yea, all Burgundy I mar- 
shalled under your stepson's banner, and for three years 
I fought beneath his loathed banner, until in Troyes we 
had trapped and slain the last loyal Frenchman. And 
to-day in France my lands are confiscate, and there is 
not an honest Frenchman but spits upon my name. 
All infamy I come to you for this last time, Jehane! 
as a man already dead I come to you, Jehane, for in France 
they thirst to murder me, and England has no further need 
of Montbrison, her blunted and her filthy instrument!" 

The woman shuddered. "You have set my thankless 
service above your life, above your honor even. I find 
the rhymester glorious and very vile." 

"All vile," he answered; "and outworn! King's 
daughter, I swore to you, long since, eternal service. 
Of love I freely gave you yonder in Navarre, as yonder at 
Eltham I crucified my innermost heart for your delecta- 
tion. Yet I, at least, keep faith, and in your face I fling 
faith like a glove — outworn, it may be, and, God knows, 
unclean! Yet I, at least, keep faith! Lands and wealth 
have I given up for you, O king's daughter, and life 
itself have I given you, and lifelong service have I given 
you, and all that I had save honor; and at the last I give 

190 



you honor, too. Now let the naked fool depart, Jehane, 
for he has nothing more to give." 

She had leaned, while thus he spoke, upon the sill of 
an open casement. "Indeed, it had been far better," 
she said, and with averted face, ''had we never met. 
For this love of ours has proven a tyrannous and evil lord. 
I have had everything, and upon each feast of will and 
sense the world afforded me this love has swept down, 
like a harpy — was it not a harpy you called the bird in 
that old poem of yours? — to rob me of delight. And 
you have had nothing, for of life he has pilfered you, 
and he has given you in exchange but dreams, my poor 
Antoine, and he has led you at the last to infamy. We 
are as God made us, and — I may not understand why 
He permits this despotism." 

Thereafter, somewhere below, a peasant sang as he 
passed supperward through the green twilight, lit as yet 
by one low-hanging star alone. 

Sang the peasant: 

''King Jesus hung upon the Cross, 
* And have ye sinned f ' quo ' He, — 

* Nay, Dysmas, 'tis no honest loss 
When Satan cogs the dice ye toss, 

And thou shalt sup with Me, — 
Sedebis apud angelos. 
Quia amavistif 

''At Heaven's Gate was Heaven's Queen, 
'And have ye sinned?' quo' She, — 

* And would I hold him worth a bean 
That durst not seek, because unclean, 

My cleansing charity? — 
Speak thou that wast the Magdalene^ 
Quia amavisti !'" 
191 



QUtinalrg 

"It may be that in some sort the jingle answers me!" 
then said Jehane ; and she began with an odd breathless- 
ness: "Friend, when King Henry dies — and even now 
he dies — shall I not as Regent possess such power as no 
woman has ever wielded in Europe? can aught prevent 
this?" 

"Naught," he answered. 

"Unless, friend, I were wedded to a Frenchman. 
Then would the stern English lords never permit that I 
have any finger in the government." She came to him 
with conspicuous deliberation and laid one delicate hand 
upon either shoulder. "Friend, I am aweary of these 
tinsel splendors. I crave the real kingdom." 

Her mouth was tremulous and lax, and her gray eyes 
were more brilliant than the star yonder. The man's 
arms were about her, and an ecstasy too noble for any 
common mirth had mastered them, and a vast desire 
whose aim they could not word, or even apprehend save 
cloudily. 

And of the man's face I cannot tell you. "King's 
daughter! mistress of half Europe! I am a beggar, an 
outcast, as a leper among honorable persons." 

But it was as though he had not spoken. "Friend, 
it was for this I have outlived these garish, fevered years, 
it was this which made me glad when I was a child and 
laughed without knowing why. That I might to-day 
give up this so-great power for love of you, my all- 
incapable and soiled Antoine, was, as I now know, the 
end to which the Eternal Father created me. For, look 
you," she pleaded, "to surrender absolute dominion over 
half Europe is a sacrifice. Assure me that it is a sacrifice, 
Antoine! O glorious fool, delude me into the belief 
that I deny myself in choosing you! Nay, I know it is 
as nothing beside what you have given up for me, but 

192 



it is all I have — it is all I have, Antoine!" she wailed in 
pitiful distress. 

He drew a deep and big-lunged breath that seemed to 
inform his being with an indomitable vigor, and doubt 
and sorrow went quite away from him. " Love leads us," 
he said, ''and through the sunlight of the world he leads 
us, and through the filth of it Love leads us, but always 
in the end, if we but follow without swerving, he leads 
upward. Yet, O God upon the Cross! Thou that in the 
article of death didst pardon Dysmas! as what maimed 
warriors of life, as what bemired travellers in muddied 
byways, must we presently come to Thee!" 

''But hand in hand," she answered; "and He will 
comprehend." 



THE END OF THE NINTH NOVEL 



X 
®I|^ &t0ra 0f tl{r 3F03c-lruBlf 

''Dame serez de mon cueur, sans debat, 
Entierementy jusques mort me consume. 
Laurier soiief qui pour mon droit combat, 
Olivier franc, m'ostant toute amertume.'* 



14 



THE TENTH NOVEL. — KATHARINE OF VALOIS IS WON BY A 
HUNTSMAN, AND LOVES HIM GREATLY; THEN FINDS HIM, TO 
HER HORROR, AN IMPOSTOR; AND FOR A SUFFICIENT REA- 
SON CONSENTS TO MARRY QUITE ANOTHER PERSON, AND 
NOT ALL UNWILLINGLY. 



Slj^ ^tavs of lift iffflx-lrualf 




^N the year of grace 141 7, about Martinmas 
(thus Nicolas begins), Queen Isabeau fled 
with her daughter the Lady Katharine 
to Chartres. There the Queen was met 
by the Duke of Burgundy, and these 
two laid their heads together to such 
good effect that presently they got back into Paris, and 
in its public places massacred some three thousand Ar- 
magnacs. This, however, is a matter which touches his- 
tory ; the root of our concernment is that when the Queen 
and the Duke rode off to attend to this butcher's busi- 
ness, the Lady Katharine was left behind in the Convent of 
Saint Scholastica, which then stood upon the outskirts 
of Chartres, in the bend of the Eure just south of that 
city. She dwelt a year in this well-ordered place. 

There one finds her upon the day of the decollation of 
Saint John the Baptist, the fine August morning that 
starts the tale. Katharine the Fair, men called her, 
with some show of reason. She was very tall, and slim 
as a rush. Her eyes were large and black, having an ex- 
treme lustre, like the gleam of undried ink — a lustre at odd 
times uncanny. Her abundant hair, too, was black, and 
to-day doubly sombre by contrast with the gold netting 
which confined it. Her mouth was scarlet, all curves, 
and her complexion famous for its brilliancy; only a 
precisian would have objected that she possessed the 

197 



Qllftiralra 

Valois nose, long and thin and somewhat unduly over- 
hanging the mouth. 

To-day as she came through the orchard, crimson- 
garbed, she paused with lifted eyebrows. Beyond the 
orchard wall there was a hodgepodge of noises, among 
w^hich a nice ear might distinguish the clatter of hoofs, 
a yelping and scurrying, and a contention of soft bodies, 
and above all a man's voice commanding the turmoil. 
She was seventeen, so she climbed into the crotch of an 
apple-tree and peered over the wall. 

He w^as in rusty brown and not unshabby; but her 
regard swept over this to his face, and there noted how 
his eyes were blue winter stars under the tumbled yellow 
hair, and the flash of his big teeth as he swore between 
them. He held a dead fox by the brush, w^hich he was 
cutting off; two hounds, lank and w^olfish, were scaling 
his huge body in frantic attempts to get at the carrion. 
A horse grazed close at hand. 

So for a heart -beat she saw him. Then he flung the 
tailless body to the hounds, and in the act spied two black 
eyes peeping through the apple-leaves. He laughed, 
all mirth to the heels of him. ''Mademoiselle, I fear we 
have disturbed your devotions. But I had not heard 
that it was a Benedictine custom to rehearse aves in tree- 
tops." Then, as she leaned forward, both elbows resting 
more comfortably upon the w^all, and thereby disclosing 
her slim body among the foliage like a crimson flower 
green-calyxed : " You are not a nun— Blood of God ! you 
are the Princess Katharine!" 

The nuns, her present guardians, would have declared 
the ensuing action horrific, for Katharine smiled frankly 
at him and demanded how he could be certain of this. 

He answered slowly; '* I have seen your portrait. 
Hah, your portrait!" he jeered, head flung back and big 

198 




Painting by Howard Pyle 

"SO FOR A HEART-BEAT SHE SAW HIM 



teeth glinting in the sunHght. "There is a painter 
who merits crucifixion." 

She considered this indicative of a cruel disposition, 
but also of a fine taste in the liberal arts. Aloud she 
stated : 

" You are not a Frenchman, messire. I do not under- 
stand how you can have seen my portrait." 

The man stood for a moment twiddling the fox-brush. 
*' I am a harper, my Princess. I have visited the courts 
of many kings, though never that of France. I perceive 
I have been woefully unwise." 

This trenched upon insolence — the look of his eyes, 
indeed, carried it well past the frontier — ^but she found 
the statement interesting. Straightway she touched the 
kernel of those fear-blurred legends whispered about her 
cradle and now clamant. 

"You have, then, seen the King of England?" 

"Yes, Highness." 

"Is it true that he is an ogre — like Agrapard and 
Angoulaffre of the Broken Teeth?" 

His gaze widened. "I have heard a deal of scandal 
concerning the man. But never that." 

Katharine settled back, luxuriously, in the crotch of 
the apple-tree "Tell me about him." 

Composedly he sat down upon the grass and began to 
acquaint her with his knowledge and opinions concerning 
Henry, the fifth of that name to reign in England. 
Katharine punctuated his discourse with eager question- 
ings, which are not absolutely to our purpose. In the 
main this harper thought the man now buffeting France 
a just king, and, the crown laid aside, he had heard Sire 
Henry to be sufficiently jovial and even prankish. The 
harper educed anecdotes. He considered that the King 
would manifestly take Rouen, which the insatiable man 

199 



(Ullttialrg 

was now besieging. Was the King in treaty for the hand 
of the Infanta of Aragon? Yes, he undoubtedly was. 

Katharine sighed her pity for this ill-starred woman. 
"And now tell me about yourself." 

He was, it appeared, Alain Maquedonnieux, a harper 
by vocation, and by birth a native of Ireland. Beyond 
the fact that it was a savage kingdom adjoining Cataia, 
Katharine knew nothing of Ireland. The harper assured 
her of anterior misinformation, since the kings of Eng- 
land claimed Ireland as an appanage, though the Irish 
themselves were of two minds as to the justice of these 
pretensions ; all in all, he considered that Ireland belonged 
to Saint Patrick, and that the holy man had never ac- 
credited a vicar. 

"Doubtless, by the advice of God," Alain said: "for 
I have read in Master Roger de Wendover's Chronicles 
of how at the dread day of judgment all the Irish are to 
muster before the high and pious Patrick, as their liege 
lord and father in the spirit, and by him be conducted 
into the presence of God ; and of how, by virtue of Saint 
Patrick's request, all the Irish will die seven years to an 
hour before the second coming of Christ, in order to give 
the blessed saint sufficient time to marshal his company, 
which is considerable." Katharine admitted the conven- 
ience of this arrangement, as well as the neglect of her 
education. Alain gazed up at her for a long while, as 
in reflection, and presently said: "Doubtless the Lady 
Heleine of Argos also was thus starry-eyed and found 
in books less diverting reading than in the faces of men." 
It flooded Katharine's cheeks with a livelier hue, but did 
not vex her irretrievably; yet, had she chosen to read 
this man's face, the meaning was plain enough. 

I give you the gist of their talk, and that in all con- 
science is trivial. But it was a day when one entered 

200 



love's wardship with a splurge, not in more modern fashion 
venturing forward bit by bit, as though love were so 
much cold water. So they talked for a long while, with 
laughter mutually provoked and shared, with divers 
eloquent and dangerous pauses. The harper squatted 
upon the ground, the Princess leaned over the wall; but 
to all intent they sat together upon the loftiest turret of 
Paradise, and it was a full two hours before Katharine 
hinted at departure. 

Alain rose, approaching the wall. *' To-morrow I ride 
for Milan to take service with Duke Filippo. I had 
broken my journey these three days past at Chateauneuf 
yonder, where this fox has been harrying my host's 
chickens. To-day I went out to slay him, and he led me, 
his murderer, to the fairest lady earth may boast. Do 
you not think this fox was a true Christian, my Prin- 
cess?" 

Katharine said : "I lament his destruction. Fare- 
well, Messire Alain! And since chance brought you 
hither—" 

** Destiny brought me hither," Alain affirmed, a master- 
ing hunger in his eyes. " Destiny has been kind ; I shall 
make a prayer to her that she continue so." But when 
Katharine demanded what this prayer would be, Alain 
shook his tawny head. ** Presently you shall know, 
Highness, but not now. I return to Chateauneuf on 
certain necessary businesses; to-morrow I set out at 
cockcrow for Milan and the Visconti's livery. Farewell!" 
He mounted and rode away in the golden August sunlight, 
the hounds frisking about him. The fox-brush was 
fastened in his hat. Thus Tristran de Leonois may have 
ridden a-hawking in drowned Cornwall, thus statelily 
and composedly, Katharine thought, gazing after him, 
She went to her apartments, singing, 

20I 



(Sljttialrg 

''El terns amoreus plein de joie, 
El terns oil tote riens s'esgaie, — " 

and burst into a sudden passion of tears. There were 
hosts of women-children born every day, she reflected, 
who were not princesses and therefore compelled to marry 
ogres; and some of them were beautiful. And minstrels 
made such an ado over beauty. 

Dawn found her in the orchard. She was to remember 
that it was a cloudy morning, and that mist-tatters 
trailed from the more distant trees. In the slaty twilight 
the garden's verdure was lustreless, grass and foliage 
uniformly sombre save where dewdrops show^ed like 
beryls. Nowhere in the orchard was there absolute 
shadow, nowhere a vista unblurred; but in the east, 
half-way between horizon and zenith, two belts of 
coppery light flared against the gray sky like embers 
swaddled by their ashes. The birds were waking; 
there were occasional scurryings in tree-tops and out- 
bursts of peevish twittering to attest as much; and 
presently came a singing, less meritorious than that of 
many a bird perhaps, but far more grateful to the girl 
who heard it, heart in mouth. A lute accompanied the 
song demurely. 

Sang Alain: 

"O Madam Destiny, omnipotent, 

Be not too obdurate the while we pray 
That this the fleet, sweet time of youth be spent 
In laughter as befits a holiday, 
From which the evening summons us aivay, 
From ivhich to-morroiv wakens us to strife 

And toil and grief and wisdom — and to-day 
Grudge us not life! 

202 



"0 Madam Destiny, omnipotent, 

Why need our elders trouble us at play? 

We know that very soon we shall repent 
The idle follies of our holiday. 
And being old, shall be as wise as they, 

But now we are not wise, and lute and fife 
Seem sweeter far than wisdom — so to-day 

Grudge us not life! 

'' Madam Destiny, omnipotent, 

You have given us youth — and must we cast away 
The cup undrained and our one coin unspent 
Because our elders' beards and hearts are gray? 
They have forgotten that if we delay 
Death claps us on the shoulder, and with knife 

Or cord or fever knocks the prayer we pray — 
'Grudge us not life!' 

''Madam, recall that in the sun we play 

But for an hour, then have the worm for wife, 
The tomb for habitation — and to-day 
Grudge us not life!'' 

Candor in these matters is best. Katharine scrambled 
into the crotch of the apple-tree. The dew pattered 
sharply about her, but the Princess was not in a mood 
to appraise discomfort. 

"You came!" this harper said, transfigured; and then 
again, " You came ! " 

She breathed, "Yes." 

So for a long time they stood looking at each other. 
She found adoration in his eyes and quailed before it; 
and in the man's mind not a grimy and mean incident 
of the past but marshalled to leer at his unworthiness : 

203 



Qlljtualrg 

yet in that primitive garden the first man and woman, 
meeting, knew no sweeter terror. 

It was by the minstrel a familiar earth and the grat- 
ing speech of earth were earlier regained. " The affair is of 
the suddenest," Alain observed, and he now swung the lute 
behind him. He indicated no intention of touching her, 
though he might easily have done so as he sat there 
exalted by the height of his horse. '*A meteor arrives 
with more prelude. But Love is an arbitrary lord; 
desiring my heart, he has seized it, and accordingly I 
would now brave hell to come to you, and finding you there, 
esteem hell a pleasure-garden. I have already made my 
prayer to Destiny that she concede me love, and now 
of God, our Father and Master, I entreat quick death if 
I am not to win you. For, God willing, I shall come to 
you again, though in doing so it were necessary that I 
split the world like a rotten orange." 

"Madness! Oh, brave, sweet madness!" Katharine 
said. " I am a king's daughter, and you a min- 
strel." 

"Is it madness? Why, then, I think all sensible men 
are to be commiserated. And indeed I spy in all this 
some design. Across half the earth I came to you, led 
by a fox. Heh, God's face!" Alain swore; "the foxes 
Samson, that old sinewy captain, loosed among the corn 
of heathenry kindled no disputation such as this fox 
has set afoot. That was an affair of standing corn and 
olives spoilt, a bushel or so of disaster; now poised 
kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin. There will be 
martial argument shortly if you bid me come again." 

"I bid you come," said Katharine; and after they 
had stared at each other for a long while, he rode away 
in silence. It was through a dank, tear-flawed world 
that she stumbled conventward, while out of the east 

204 



the sun came bathed in mists, a watery sun no brighter 
than a silver coin. 

And for a month the world seemed no less dreary, 
but about Michaelmas the Queen-Regent sent for her. 
At the Hotel de Saint-Pol matters were much the same. 
Her mother Katharine found in foul-mouthed rage over 
the failure of a third attempt to poison the Dauphin of 
Vienne, as Isabeau had previously poisoned her two elder 
sons ; I might here trace out a curious similitude between 
the Valois and that dragon-spawned race which Jason 
very anciently slew at Colchis, since the world was never 
at peace so long as any two of them existed: but King 
Charles greeted his daughter with ampler deference, 
esteeming her Presbyter John's wife, the tyrant of 
/Ethiopia. However, ingenuity had just suggested card- 
playing for his amusement, and he paid little attention 
nowadays to any one save his opponent. 

So the French King chirped his senile jests over the 
card-table, while the King of England was besieging the 
French city of Rouen sedulously and without mercy. In 
late autumn an armament from Ireland joined Henry's 
forces. The Irish fought naked, it was said, with long 
knives. Katharine heard discreditable tales of these 
Irish, and reflected how gross are the exaggerations of 
rumor. 

In the year of grace 141 9, in January, the burgesses of 
Rouen, having consumed their horses, and finding frogs 
and rats unpalatable, yielded the town. It was the 
Queen-Regent who brought the news to Katharine. 

"God is asleep," the Queen said; "and while He nods, 
the Butcher of Agincourt has stolen our good city of 
Rouen." She sat down and breathed heavily. "Never 
was poor woman so pestered as I ! The puddings to-day 
were quite uneatable, and on vSunday the Englishman 

205 



Olljitialrg 

entered Rouen in great splendor, attended by his chief 
nobles; but the Butcher rode alone, and before him 
went a page carrying a fox-brush on the point of his lance. 
I put it to you, is that the contrivance of a sane man ? 
Euh! euh!" Dame Isabeau squealed on a sudden; "you 
are bruising me." 

Katharine had gripped her by the shoulder. "The 
King of England — a tall, fair man? with big teeth? a 
tiny wen upon his neck — here — and with his left cheek 
scarred? with blue eyes, very bright, bright as tapers?" 
She poured out her questions in a torrent, and awaited the 
answer, seeming not to breathe at all. 

"I believe so," the Queen said. 

"O God!" said Katharine. 

" Ay, our only hope now. And may God show him no 
more mercy than he has shown us ! " the good lady desired, 
with fervor. "The hog, having w^on our Normandy, is 
now advancing on Paris itself. He repudiated the 
Aragonish alliance last August ; and until last August he 
was content with Normandy, they tell us, but now^ he 
swears to win all France. The man is a madman, and 
Scythian Tamburlaine was more lenient. And I do not 
believe that in all France there is a cook who understands 
his business." She went away whimpering and proceeded 
to get tipsy. 

The Princess remained quite still, as Dame Isabeau 
had left her ; you may see a hare crouch so at sight of the 
hounds. Finally the girl spoke aloud. "Until last 
August!" Katharine said. "Until last August! Poised 
kingdoms topple on the brink of ruin, now that you hid me 
come to you again. And I bade him come!" Presently 
she went into her oratory and began to pray. 

In the midst of her invocation she wailed: "Fool, fool! 
How could I have thought him less than a king!" 

206 



®1|0 g^turg uf tl)t 3f0x-SruHl| 

You are to imagine her breast thus adrum with remorse 
and hatred of herself, what time town by town fell before 
the invader like card-houses. Every rumor of defeat — 
and they were many — was her arraignment; impotently 
she cowered at God's knees, knowing herself a murderess, 
whose infamy was still afoot, outpacing her prayers, 
whose victims were battalions. Tarpeia and Pisidice 
and Rahab were her sisters; she hungered in her abase- 
ment for Judith's nobler guilt. 

In May he came to her. A truce was patched up 
and French and English met amicably in a great plain 
near Meulan. A square space was staked out and on 
three sides boarded in, the fourth side being the river 
Seine. This enclosure the Queen-Regent, Jehan of 
Burgundy, and Katharine entered from the French side. 
Simultaneously the English King appeared, accompanied 
by his brothers the Dukes of Clarence and Gloucester, 
and followed by the Earl of Warwick. Katharine raised 
her eyes with I know not what lingering hope; it was he, 
a young Zeus now, triumphant and uneager. In his 
helmet in place of a plume he wore a fox-brush spangled 
with jewels. 

These six entered the tent pitched for the conference — 
the hanging of blue velvet embroidered wdth fleurs-de-lys 
of gold blurred before the girl's eyes, and till death the 
device sickened her — and there the Earl of Warwick 
embarked upon a sea of rhetoric. His French was in- 
different, his periods interminable, and his demands 
exorbitant ; in brief, the King of England wanted Katha- 
rine and most of France, with a reversion at the French 
King's death of the entire kingdom. Meanwhile Sire 
Henry sat in silence, his eyes glowing. 

"I have come," he said, under cover of Warwick's 
oratory — "I have come again, my lady." 

207 



(Elittialrg 

Katharine's gaze flickered over him. "Liar!" she 
said, very softly. "Has God no thunder in His armory 
that this vile thief should go unblasted? Would you 
filch love as well as kingdoms?" 

His ruddy face went white. "I love you, Katha- 
rine." 

"Yes," she answered, "for I am your pretext. I can 
well believe, messire, that you love your pretext for theft 
and murder." 

Neither spoke after this, and presently the Earl of 
Warwick having come to his peroration, the matter 
was adjourned till the next day. The party separated. 
It was not long before Katharine had informed her 
mother that, God willing, she would never again look 
upon the King of England's face uncoffined. Isabeau 
found her a madwoman. The girl swept opposition 
before her with gusts of demoniacal fury, wept, shrieked, 
tore at her hair, and eventually fell into a sort of epileptic 
seizure; between rage and terror she became a horrid, 
frenzied beast. I do not dwell upon this, for it is not a 
condition in which the comeliest maid shows to advantage. 
But, for the Valois, insanity always lurked at the next 
corner, expectant, and they knew it; to save the girl's 
reason the Queen was forced to break off all discussion 
of the match. Accordingly, the Duke of Burgundy went 
next day to the conference alone. Jehan began with 
"ifs," and over these flimsy barriers Henry, already 
maddened by Katharine's scorn, presently vaulted to a 
towering fury. 

"Fair cousin," the King said, after a deal of vehement 
bickering, "we wish you to know that we will have the 
daughter of your King, and that we will drive both him 
and you out of this kingdom." 

The Duke answered, not without spirit: "Sire, you are 

208 



pleased to say so ; but before you have succeeded in oust- 
ing my lord and me from this realm, I am of the opinion 
that you will be very heartily tired." 

At this the King turned on his heel ; over his shoulder 
he flung: *'I am tireless; also, I am agile as a fox in the 
pursuit of my desires. Say that to your Princess." 
Then he went away in a rage. 

It had seemed an approvable business to win love 
incognito, according to the example of many ancient 
emperors, but in practice he had tripped over an ugly 
outgrowth from the legendary custom. The girl hated 
him, there was no doubt about it; and it was equally 
certain he loved her. Particularly caustic was the reflec- 
tion that a twitch of his finger would get him Katharine 
as his wife, for in secret negotiation the Queen-Regent 
was soon trying to bring this about; yes, he could get the 
girl's body by a couple of pen-strokes; but, God's face! 
what he wanted was to rouse the look her eyes had borne 
in Chartres orchard that tranquil morning, and this one 
could not readily secure by fiddling with seals and parch- 
ments. You see his position: he loved the Princess too 
utterly to take her on lip-consent, and this marriage was 
now his one possible excuse for ceasing from victorious 
warfare. So he blustered, and the fighting recommenced ; 
and he slew in a despairing rage, knowing that by every 
movement of his arm he became to her so much the more 
detestable. 

He stripped the realm of provinces as you peel the 
layers from an onion. By the May of the year of grace 
1420 France was, and knew herself to be, not beaten 
but demolished. Only a fag-end of the French army 
lay entrenched at Troyes, where the court awaited 
Henry's decision as to the morrow's action. If he chose 
to destroy them root and branch, he could; and they 

209 



(Ulltualrg 

knew such mercy as was in the man to be quite untarnished 
by previous usage. He drew up a small force before the 
city and made no overtures toward either peace or throat- 
cutting. 

This was the posture of affairs on the evening of the 
Sunday after Ascension day, w^hen Katharine sat at cards 
with her father in his apartments at the Hotel de Ville. 
The King was pursing his lips over an alternative play, 
when there came the voice of one singing below in the 
courtyard. 

Sang the voice: : 



(( 



/ get no joy of my life 

That have weighed the world — and it was 
Abundant with folly, and rife 

With sorrows brittle as glass. 

And with joys that flicker and pass 
As dreams through a fevered head, 

And like the dripping of rain 
In gardens naked and dead 

Is the obdurate thin refrain 
Of our youth which is presently dead. 



^' And she whom alone I have loved 

Looks ever with loathing on me, 
As one she hath seen disproved 

And stained with such smirches as be 

Not ever cleansed utterly, 
And is loth to remember the days 

When Destiny fixed her name 
As the theme and the goal of my praise, 

And my love engenders shame, 
And I stain what I strive for and praise. 

2IO 



" love, most perfect of all, 

Just to have known you is well! 
And it heartens me now to recall 

That just to have known you is welly 

And naught else is desirable 
Save only to do as you willed 

And to love you my whole life long — 
But this heart in me is filled 

With hunger cruel and strongs 
And with hunger unfulfilled. 

" O Love, that art stronger than we, 
Albeit not lightly stilled, 

Thou art less cruel than she.'' 

Malise came hastily into the room, and, without 
speaking, laid a fox-brush before the Princess. 

Katharine twirled it in her hand, staring at the card- 
littered table. "So you are in his pay, Malise? I am 
sorry. But you know that your employer is master here. 
Who am I to forbid him entrance?" The girl went away 
silently, abashed, and the Princess sat quite still, tapping 
the brush against the table. 

" They do not want me to sign another treaty, do they ? " 
her father asked timidly. "It appears to me they are 
always signing treaties, and I cannot see that any good 
comes of it. And I would have won the last game, 
Katharine, if Malise had not interrupted us. You know 
I would have won." 

"Yes, father, you would have won. Oh, he must not 
see you!" Katharine cried, a great tide of love mounting 
in her breast, the love that draws a mother fiercely to 
shield her backward boy. " Father, will you not go into 
your chamber? I have a new book for you, father — 

IS 211 



(Elfiitalrg 

all pictures, dear. Come — •" She was coaxing him 
when Henry appeared in the doorway. 

"But I do not wish to look at pictures," Charles said, 
peevishly; " I wish to play cards. You are an ungrateful 
daughter, Katharine. You are never willing to amuse 
me." He sat down with a whimper and began to pinch 
at his dribbling lips. 

Katharine had moved a. little toward the door. Her 
face was white. " Now welcome, sire ! " she said. " Wel- 
come, O great conqueror, who in your hour of triumph can 
find no nobler recreation than to shame a maid with her 
past folly! It was valorously done, sire. See, father; 
here is the King of England come to observe how low we 
sit that yesterday were lords of France." 

"The King of England!" echoed Charles, and rose now 
to his feet. "I thought we were at war with him. But 
my memory is treacherous. You perceive, brother of 
England, I am planning a new mouse-trap, and my mind 
is somewhat preempted. I recall now you are in treaty 
for my daughter's hand. Katharine is a good girl, 
messire, but I vsuppose — " He paused, as if to regard 
and hear some insensible counsellor, and then briskly 
resumed : " Yes, I suppose policy demands that she should 
marry you. We trammelled kings can never go free of 
policy — ey, my compere of England ? No ; it was through 
policy I wedded her mother; and w^e have been very 
unhappy, Isabeau and I. A word in your ear, son-in-law: 
Madame Isabeau's soul formerly inhabited a sow, as 
Pythagoras teaches, and when our Saviour cast it out at 
Gadara, the influence of the moon drew it hither." 

Henry did not say anything. Always his calm blue 
eyes appraised Dame Katharine. 

" Oho, these Latinists cannot hoodwink me, you observe, 
though by ordinary it chimes with my humor to aj^pear 

212 



content. Policy again, messire: for once roused, I am 
terrible. To - day in the great hall - window, under the 
bleeding feet of Lazarus, I slew ten flies — very black they 
were, the black shrivelled souls of parricides — and after- 
ward I wept for it. I often weep; the Mediterranean 
hath its sources in my eyes, for my daughter cheats at 
cards. Cheats, sir! — and I her father!" The incessant 
peering, the stealthy cunning with which Charles whispered 
this, the confidence with which he clung to his destroyer's 
hand, was that of a conspiring child. 

'* Come, father," Katharine said. " Come away to bed, 
dear." 

"Hideous basilisk!" he spat at her; **dare you rebel 
against me? Am I not King of France, and is it not 
blasphemy a King of France should be thus mocked ? 
Frail moths that flutter about my splendor." he shrieked, 
in an unheralded frenzy, ''beware of me, beware! for I 
am omnipotent! I am King of France, God's regent. 
At my command the winds go about the earth, and 
nightly the stars are kindled for my recreation. Perhaps 
I am mightier than God, but I do not remember now. 
The reason is written down and lies somewhere under 
a bench. Now I sail for England. Eia! eia! I go to 
ravage England, terrible and merciless. But I must have 
my mouse- traps, Goodman Devil, for in England the 
cats o' the middle-sea wait unfed." He went out of the 
room, giggling, and in the corridor began to sing: 

''Adieu dc fois plus de cent mile! 
Aillors vols oir VEvangile, 
Car chi fors mentir on ne sail. . . .** 

All this while Henry remained immovable, his eyes 
fixed upon Katharine. Thus (she meditated) he stood 

213 



among Frenchmen; he was the boulder, and they the 
waters that babbled and fretted about him. But she 
turned and met his gaze squarely. 

"And that," she said, "is the king whom you have 
conquered! Is it not a notable conquest to overcome 
so sapient a king ? to pilfer renown from an idiot ? There 
are pickpockets in Troyes, rogues doubly damned, who 
would scorn the action. Now shall I fetch my mother, 
sire? the commander of that great army which you 
overcame? As the hour is late she is by this tipsy, but 
she will come. Or perhaps she is with some paid lover, 
but if this conqueror, this second Alexander, wills it she 
will come. O God ! " the girl wailed, on a sudden ; " O just 
and all-seeing God! are not we of Valois so contemptible 
that in conquering us it is the victor who is shamed?" 

"Flower o' the marsh!" he said, and his big voice 
pulsed with many tender cadences — "flower o' the 
marsh! it is not the King of England who now comes to 
you, but Alain the harper. Henry Plantagenet God has led 
hither by the hand to punish the sins of this realm and 
to reign in it like a true king. Henry Plantagenet will 
cast out the Valois from the throne they have defiled, 
as Darius Belshazzar, for such is the desire and the intent 
of God. But to you comes Alain the harper, not as a 
conqueror but as a suppliant — Alain who has loved you 
whole-heartedly these two years past and who now kneels 
before you entreating grace." 

Katharine looked down into his countenance, for to 
his speech he had fitted action. Suddenly and for the 
first time she understood that he believed France his by 
a divine favor and Heaven's peculiar intervention. He 
thought himself God's factor, not His rebel. He was 
rather stupid, this huge handsome boy; and realizing it, 
her hand went to his shoulder, half maternally. 

214 



*' It is nobly done, sire. I know that you must wed me 
to uphold your claim to France, for otherwise in the 
world's eyes you are shamed. You sell, and I with my 
body purchase, peace for France. There is no need of 
a lover's posture when hucksters meet." 

" So changed ! " he said, and he was silent for an interval, 
still kneeling. Then he began: "You force me to point 
out that I no longer need a pretext to hold France. 
France lies before me prostrate. By God's singular 
grace I reign in this fair kingdom, mine by right of con- 
quest, and an alliance with the house of Valois will neither 
make nor mar me." She was unable to deny this, 
unpalatable as was the fact. '* But I love you, and there- 
fore as man wooes woman I sue to you. Do you not 
understand that there can be between us no question of 
expediency? Katharine, in Chartres orchard there met 
a man and a maid we know of ; now in Troyes they meet 
again — not as princess and king, but as man and maid, 
the wooer and the wooed. Once I touched your heart, 
I think. And now in all the world there is one thing I 
covet — to gain for the poor king some portion of that love 
you would have squandered on the harper." His hand 
closed upon hers. 

At his touch the girl's composure vanished. "My 
lord, you woo too timidly for one who comes with many 
loud-voiced advocates. I am daughter to the King of 
France, and next to my soul's salvation I esteem France's 
welfare. Can I, then, fail to love the King of England, 
who chooses the blood of my countrymen as a judicious 
garb to come a-wooing in? How else, since you have 
ravaged my native land, since you have besmirched the 
name I bear, since yonder afield every wound in my 
dead and yet unburied Frenchmen is to me a mouth 
which shrieks your infamy?" 

215 



(dlrittalrjj 

He rose. "And yet, for all that, you love me.'* 

She could not find words with which to answer him 
at the first effort, but presently she said, quite simply, 
*' To see you lying in your cofiin I would willingly give up 
my hope of heaven, for heaven can afford no sight more 
desirable." 

"You loved Alain." 

" I loved the husk of a man. You can never compre- 
hend how utterly I loved him." 

Now I have to record of this great king a piece of 
magnanimity which bears the impress of more ancient 
times. "That you love me is indisputable," he said, 
"and this I propose to demonstrate. You will observe 
that I am quite unarmed save for this dagger, which I 
now throw out of the window — " with the word it jangled 
in the courtyard below. " I am in Troyes alone among 
some thousand Frenchmen, any one of whom would 
willingly give his life for the privilege of taking mine. 
You have but to sound the gong beside you, and in a few 
moments I shall be a dead man. Strike, then! for with 
me dies the English power in France. Strike, Katharine! 
if you see in me but the King of England." 

She was rigid ; and his heart leapt when he saw it was 
because of terror. 

" You came alone ! You dared ! " 

He answered, with a wonderful smile, "Proud spirit! 
how else might I conquer you?" 

" You have not conquered ! " Katharine lifted the baton 
beside the gong, poising it. God had granted her prayer — 
to save France. Now might the past and the ignominy 
of the past be merged in Judith's nobler guilt. But I 
must tell you that in the supreme hour, Destiny at her 
beck, her main desire was to slap the man for his childish- 
ness. Oh, he had no right thus to besot himself with 

216 



adoration! This dejection at her feet of his high destiny 
awed her, and pricked her, too, with her inabiHty to 
understand him. Angrily she flung away the baton. 
"Go! ah, go!" she cried, as one strangling. "There has 
been enough of bloodshed, and I must spare you, loathing 
you as I do, for I cannot with my own hand murder you." 

But the King was a kindly tyrant, crushing indepen- 
dence from his associates as lesser folk squeeze water from 
a sponge. "I cannot go thus. Acknowledge me to be 
Alain, the man you love, or else strike upon the gong." 

"You are cruel!" she wailed, in her torture. 

"Yes, I am cruel." 

Katharine raised straining arms above her head in a 
hard gesture of despair. "You have conquered. You 
know that I love you. Oh, if I could find words to voice 
my shame, to shriek it in your face, I could better endure 
it! For I love you. Body and heart and soul I am 
your slave. Mine is the agony, for I love you! and 
presently I shall stand quite still and see little French- 
men scramble about you as hounds leap about a stag, 
and afterward kill you. And after that I shall live! 
I preserve France, but after I have slain you, Henry, 
I must live. Mine is the agony, the enduring agony." 
She stayed motionless for an interval. "God, God! 
let me not fail!" Katharine breathed; and then: "O fair 
sweet friend, I am about to commit a vile action, but it 
is for the sake of France that I love next to God. As 
Judith gave her body to Holof ernes, I crucify my heart 
for France's welfare." Very calmly she struck upon the 
gong. 

If she could have found any reproach in his eyes during 
the ensuing silence, she could have borne it; but there 
was only love. And with all that, he smiled as one 
knowing the upshot of the matter. 

217 



(Etjttralry 

A man-at-arms came into the room. "Germain — " 
Katharine said, and then again, "Germain — " She 
gave a swallowing motion and was silent. When she 
spoke it was with crisp distinctness. "Germain, fetch a 
harp. Messire Alain here is about to play for me." 

At the man's departure she said: "I am very pitiably 
weak. Need you have dragged my soul, too, in the dust ? 
God heard my prayer, and you have forced me to deny 
His favor, as Peter denied Christ. My dear, be very kind 
to me, for I come to you naked of honor." She fell at 
the King's feet, embracing his knees. "My master, be 
very kind to me, for there remains only your love." 

He raised her to his breast. " Love is enough," he said. 

Next day the English entered Troyes and in the cathe- 
dral church these two were betrothed. Henry was there 
magnificent in a curious suit of burnished armor ; in place 
of his helmet-plume he wore a fox-brush ornamented 
with jewels, which unusual ornament afforded great 
matter of remark among the busy bodies of both armies. 



THE END OF THE TENTH NOVEL 



'' Et je fats sgavoir a tons lecteurs de ce Livret que les 
chose s que je dis avoir vues et sues sont enregistres icy, a fin 
que vous pouviez les regarder selon vostre bon sens, s'il vous 
plaisV 



HERE IS APPENDED THE EPILOGUE THAT MESSIRE NICOLAS 
DE CAEN MADE FOR THE BOOK WHICH CONTAINED THE 
SOUL OF him; and which (in consequence) HE MIGHT NOT 
VIEW AS HE DID ANYTHING THAT CONVEYED ABOUT THIS 
WORLD MERE FLESH AND BLOOD AND THE SOUL OF ANOTHER 
PERSON. 



®l!^ 1Eptl00«$ 



A son Livret 




fNTREPIDLY depart, my little book, into 
the presence of that most illustrious lady 
who bade me compile you. Bow down 
before her judgment patiently. And if 
her sentence be that of death I counsel 
you to grieve not at what cannot be 
avoided. 

But, if by any miracle that glorious, strong fortress of 
the w^eak consider it advisable, pass thence to every man 
who may desire to purchase you, and live out your little 
hour among these very credulous persons; and at your 
appointed season die and be forgotten. For thus only 
may you share your betters' fate, and be at one with those 
famed comedies of Greek Menander and all the poignant 
songs of Sappho. Et quid PandonicB — thus, little book, 
I charge you poultice your more-merited oblivion — 
quid PandonicB restat nisi nomen Athencef 

Yet even in your brief existence you may chance to 
meet with those who will affirm that the stories you 
narrate are not verily true and erroneously protest too 
many assertions which are only fables. To these you 
will reply that I, your maker, was in my 3^outh the quite 
unworthy servant of the most high and noble lady, Dame 
Jehane, and in this period, at and about her house of 
Havering-Bower, conversed in my own person with Dame 



221 



Katharine, then happily remarried to a private gentleman 
of Wales ; and so obtained the matter of the ninth story 
and of the tenth authentically. You will say also that 
Messire de Montbrison afforded me the main matter of the 
sixth and seventh stories; and that, moreover, I once 
journeyed to Caer Idion and talked for some two hours 
with Richard Holland (whom I found a very old and 
garrulous and cheery person), and got of him the matter 
of the eighth tale in this dizain, together with much 
information as concerns the sixth and the seventh. And 
you will add that the matter of the fourth and fifth tales 
was in every detail related to me by my most illustrious 
mistress, Madame Isabella of Portugal, who had it from 
her mother, an equally veracious and immaculate lady, 
and one that was in youth Dame Philippa's most dear 
associate. For the rest you must admit, unwillingly, 
the first three stories in this book to be a thought less 
solidly confirmed; although (as you will say) even in 
these I have not ever deviated from what was at odd 
times narrated to me by the aforementioned persons, 
and have always endeavored honestly to piece together 
that which they told me. 

Also, my little book, you will encounter more malignant 
people who will jeer at you, and say that you and I have 
cheated them of your purchase-money. To these you 
will reply, with Plutarch, Non mi atirum posco, nee mi 
pretium. Secondly you will say that, of necessity, the 
tailor cuts the coat according to his cloth; and that he 
cannot undertake to robe an Ephialtes or a towering 
Orion suitably when the resources of his shop amount at 
most to three scant yards of cambric. Indeed had I the 
power to make you better, my little book, I would have 
done it. A good conscience is a continual feast, and I 
summon all heaven to be my witness that had I been 

222 




Painting by Howard Pyle 



"NICOLAS: A SON LIVRET 



Homer you had awed the world, another IHad. I lament 
the improbability of your doing this as heartily as any 
person living; yet Heaven willed it; and it is in conse- 
quence to Heaven these same cavillers should now com- 
plain if they insist upon considering themselves to be 
aggrieved. 

So to such impious people do you make no answer at all, 
unless indeed you should elect to answer them by repetition 
of this trivial song which I now make for you, my little 
book, at your departure from me. And the song runs 
in this fashion: 

Depart, depart, my hook! and live and die 

Dependent on the idle fantasy 

Of men who cannot view you, quite, as I. 

For I am fond, and willingly mistake 
My book to be the book I meant to make, 
And cannot judge you, for that phantom's sake. 

Yet pardon me if I have wrought too ill 
In making you, that never spared the will 
To shape you perfectly, and lacked the skill. 

Ah, had I but the power, my book, then I 
Had wrought in you some wizardry so high 
That no man but had listened . . '. I 

They pass by. 
And shrug — as we, who know that unto us 
It has been granted never to fare thus, 
And never to be strong and glorious. 

223 



7^ it denied nie to perpetuate 
What so much loving labor did create?— 
I hear Oblivion tap upon the gate, 
And acquiesce y not all disconsolate. 

For I have got such recompense 
Of that high-hearted excellence 
Which the contented craftsman knows. 
Alone, that to loved labor goes, 
And daily doth the work he chose , 
And counts all else impertinence I 



EXPLICIT DECAS REGINARUM 



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